


Death Takes A Holiday: In The Shadow of the Black Mountain

by LyraNgalia, rude_not_ginger



Series: Death Takes A Holiday [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Action/Adventure, Burglary, Crossdressing, Exposure, F/M, Gen, Heist, Interrupted Sex, KotOR, Montenegro, Post Reichenbach, Public Sex, Resolved Sexual Tension, Robbery, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Stolen Moments, The Great Hiatus, Unhealthy Relationships, Unresolved Sexual Tension, disguises and self portraits, larceny, stolen photographs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-04-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 05:36:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LyraNgalia/pseuds/LyraNgalia, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rude_not_ginger/pseuds/rude_not_ginger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his Fall, the ghost of Sherlock Holmes and the ghost of The Woman once known as Irene Adler encounter each other in the Montenegrin city of Kotor, and a very simple offer is proposed:</p><p>"Be Irene Adler. Destroy Jim Moriarty's legacy with me."</p><p>But can two individuals as extraordinary as the two of them remain undetected ghosts, and more importantly, would they <i>want</i> to?</p><p>(Previously known simply as <i>Death Takes A Holiday</i>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Chance Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> This is a slightly edited, more reader friendly format of an ongoing collaborative story. Minimal changes have been made to the original text to correct for continuity, typos, grammar and other minor errors. 
> 
> As always, Lyra dedicates her half of this sprawling behemoth of a tale to writing partner MJ who never fails to be supportive, no matter the insanity of the idea in question, and has been enabling ever since. Lyra also dedicates her half of _Death Takes A Holiday_ to their fans who somehow found their little corner of madness, who have kept with them and encouraged them and not actually tried to kill either of them for stunts they've pulled.

Kotor was picturesque. That had been Irene Adler's first thought when she'd slipped into Montenegro. And that impression had not wavered in the days since her arrival. The town was quiet, and she styled herself an American opera singer playing tourist to the staff of the hotel. One more American tourist was nothing new to the city, and it allowed Irene quite a bit of freedom as she rebuilt her network of clients. It was more difficult now that she was thought dead. Those she had known before couldn't be approached, but there was never a shortage of those with power who ached to bend the knee.  
  
But today is a lovely, cloudless day and Irene takes the opportunity to walk the old Venetian wall along the city. Dull, perhaps, but it was something to do. Something that keeps her mind off the news from England, a tiny throwaway article to everyone else. It was old, certainly, to finally percolate down into this sleepy Mediterranean town, but to her it is fresh, and needs time to contemplate, to digest.

 

 

Sherlock Holmes had been dead for a little over a month. Long enough time to remove all of Moriarty's contacts in the German quarter, and track down eight more in the Mediterranean. He knows he'd find a few of them in Montenegro, working the political sector. It won't be too difficult to find them and allow the local authorities to "mysteriously" find incriminating evidence against them.  
  
He imagines that in another time he might've killed them. Taken them out in the most literal of senses. This is far trickier and involved more cunning. He preferred it.  
  
He lights a cigarette and straightens up the collar on his leather coat as the light wind takes its toll on his newly-reddened hair. The classic Sherlock Holmes look had to be abandoned with his fame and his friends back in London. No one could recognize him here. He had to disappear.  
  
He recognizes her, first. Another of the dead from London. Irene Adler, the Woman. What is she doing here?

 

 

Her own transformation had been more subtle. But then, she had the luxury of not being quite as well known in as many circles. Her own hair is lightened to a shade somewhere on the spectrum between brown and dark blonde, and she wears it down. That and the lack of blood red lipstick are enough to make her appear nothing more than another tourist, unless one knew how to look for the polished poise, the ramrod carriage that always spoke of one in control.  
  
Irene felt the glance before she notices its owner, but as she rounds a corner, she glances up to the redheaded man with the cigarette a little ways ahead of her and to the left. He could have been anyone, but she would recognize those cheekbones anywhere.  
  
A flare of something like hope mingled with increasing wariness rises within her as she walks by, her steps careful and her eyes alert as she approaches. As she neared him on the narrow street, she speaks, two words in a clipped American accent.  
  
"'Scuse me."  
  
  
He should have just let her walk past. She was inquiring, he could tell it from her eyes, from how she looked at him with that knowing gaze. He should have just let her go and not looked back. She might've wondered, but she wouldn't pursue. She had her own life to think about. Curiosity wasn't worth chasing a phantom.  
  
Instead, he finds himself turning to face her, holding out a folded five Euro note.  
  
"Do you have change?" he asked, his own accent a deep Parisian.

 

 

A small smile curves on her lips at his question and Irene comes to a smooth stop just a step ahead of him, as if caught by the question rather than the man.  
  
"I don't know, let me check." She lets the accent slip, just a little, at the end. To see what he would do. If he would let it pass or respond in kind, whether he'd let _her_ pass or not.  
  
She makes a small production of digging in her pocket and returning with a handful of coins that she then sorts through, the sort of thing someone unfamiliar with the currency might do. "Not from around here either?"

 

He nods and waits patiently. "I forget the cigarette machines here require exact coinage."  
  
His own accent doesn't slip at all, though his lip twitches just the slightest at hers. Playing the game, testing the waters. The Woman doesn't disappoint. He plays it as well, in his own way.  
  
  
For a moment, she thinks she'd been wrong, that sentiment makes her want to see something that isn't there. But as she takes the five euro note from his hand, she feels the edge of a different thickness within the folded note. With anyone else, it would have been a bit of minutiae to be dismissed.  
  
But this isn't anyone else.  
  
She resists the urge to open it and pockets the note instead. "Could be worse," she answers, the accent firmly in place again, as she dropped the coins into his hand. The transaction complete, she begins to walk away, adding over her shoulder, "At least they still sell them in machines here."  
  
She gives herself ten paces before she looks at the note.  
  
  
He won't give her that before he heads off to the machine to purchase another pack. He doesn't need it. He doesn't want to risk it. She slipped back into the accent immediately, that meant that either she'd given up on him being who she expected, or she recognized the note within the bill. In either case, she'd know soon enough.  
  
He heads down the street towards his next destination. He has about two hours before he had to be back at his hotel. He'd only be out one.


	2. A Deliberate Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chance encounter on the streets of Kotor forces the paths of the late Sherlock Holmes and the late Irene Adler to cross, but it takes an act of will to seek each other out again.

She arrives at the hotel an hour and a half after their chance encounter. She'd made it the ten paces before she read the sparse note, and then wandered the city with absolutely no intention of taking in the sights despite the fact that she lingered near the old stone church with a few other tourists.  
  
She suspects he'd have thought it calculation, but Irene found herself wanting the time to think, to sort her mind and let the sleepy town's serenity work its way under her skin.  
  
Still, she has to take a deep breath at the door before she raised a hand and knocked. Three quick raps.  
  
  
He calculated exactly how long he expected her to take. One hour, two at most. He arrived back within the hour, stripped his room of Moriarty's web, folding it and putting it carefully into his bag. He swapped out the jumper and leather jacket for a tailored shirt and trousers. Despite the red hair, he almost looked like himself again.  
  
When he was finished, he sits down and lights another cigarette, ready to wait. He could never work out the Woman, never know what she was planning until she'd planned it. Once, and only once, he outsmarted her. What was she planning now?  
  
There is a knock at the door. Three raps. Confident, cool. Solid knock without heavy padding. Thin, long fingers.  
  
"Come in," he says, abandoning the false accent. The chair in the room was turned towards the door.  
  
  
His words are clear through the door, and it _is_ his voice, the Parisian accent gone. Another deep breath, and she pushes the door open, waiting a moment before she steps inside. She looks exactly as she had on the street earlier. Fitted denim and a cowl neck sweater, her hair in a long braid down her back to thwart the sea breeze. Casual, American. And very much unlike the dominatrix that had nearly brought the Commonwealth to its knees.  
  
She stops just inside the door, letting it swing shut of its own accord, watching him. She almost laughs at where he sits, positioned so he can have his attention fully on the door. Some things didn't change, it seemed.  
  
"Should I say I thought you were dead?" she finally asks, the American accent falling to the wayside.  
  
  
"You wouldn't be alone in that assumption," he replies, coolly. "Suicides are only as good as the mortician who does the autopsy."  
  
Her disguise was perfect. Simple, unassuming. She slips into another role like it was an outfit she could try on. Disguises were always a self-portrait, the Woman had said, and it was true for her. Sexy and confident, not bothering with frills or cheap tricks. Layered. He was impressed, though he'd never admit it aloud.  
  
  
"Is that how you managed it this time? I had wondered, when I read the paper." She doesn't admit that she'd considered it might have been real when she'd first read that throwaway bit in the paper, had initially dismissed the notion that it had been a ruse as a bit of misplaced sentimentality.  
  
She leans against the door, her eyes taking in every corner of the room before settling back on him again. She doesn't ask the obvious question. Not yet. "You recognized me. Even Kate didn't recognize me." A lie, but an unimportant one.

  
"Of course she didn't," he replies, taking a drag on the cigarette. "Your disguise is perfect. Just subtle enough to have you blend in. She is used to Irene Adler, the woman who always stands out in a crowd. She wouldn't know where to look."  
  
He wonders, just for a moment, if John would recognize him. No, no, of course he wouldn't. John was the one Sherlock had to convince most of all that he was dead. There would be nothing but false certainty that he was just grieving, and that was why he saw Sherlock in someone on the street.  
  
He gives her a slight nod. "Our mutual friend, Jim. Made it impossible to stay alive without people I care about dying."  
  
  
His comment on her disguise makes Irene smile, the expression combining with the disguise to make her look softer, almost gentle. "And _he_ is dead, if I were to believe the paper," she muses, stepping away from the door to circle the small hotel room. That question she leaves unspoken as well. She has no doubt if he wanted to answer it he would, regardless of whether she asked.  
  
She trails a finger along the bureau, her passage stirring the light curtains that framed the window. "I have to admit, death suits you, Mr. Holmes."  
  
  
"Yes," he replies, his eyes fixed on her. "It was the one thing the papers got right. Killed himself in order to beat me, but his web lives on."  
  
This is extremely dangerous, and he knows it. He had told John that alone kept him safe, but by bringing her into this, even just to _know_ \---so why had he done it? No use in wondering, of course. He _had_ done it, and now she knows. Incredibly valuable information, that. He hopes she didn't use it against him.  
  
"And you, Miss Adler. American tourist? You've obviously been back to London recently."  
  
  
She _can_ use it against him, if the price were high enough. But the fact that she hasn't thought of it immediately, and likely won't for a while yet, helps. There are no other chairs in the small hotel room, so she takes a seat on the corner of the bed, the mattress dipping slightly under her weight.  
  
"No, I found a vacationing Londoner with a paper," she answers, still watching him. The banter, the words, are familiar, but she cannot shake the idea that they are ghosts reliving the same old routines. But they aren't specters of memory, but flesh and blood, so _something_ should give.  
  
She smiles. "And it's Alissa Carrington. American opera singer recovering from throat surgery. The staff's very accommodating."  
  
  
"And you saw Kate since your transformation," he adds. "She hasn't left London, has she?"  
  
He wants to pretend that he'd followed the path of the Woman's assistant, but honestly hadn't cared enough to. It is also an excellent way of determining if someone who might recognize Sherlock was somewhere in the area.  
  
"Convenient," he says. "Because John Stingenson just happens to have two tickets to the MSC opera on Kotor bay."  
  
It was a lie, of course. He hasn't purchased any tickets, and while he knows about the opera, he had no interest in going until the Woman mentioned her disguise.  
  
  
"She was in Paris for a holiday," she answers. Another lie, but one that was long done and does not bear dwelling upon. A faint smile plays at her lips, the expression of mingled amusement and melancholy. "I asked for change for a twenty euro note. She didn't bat an eye."  
  
She watches him carefully at his words, as if by watching she could figure out exactly what thought is in his head, whether or not he was lying. She'd thought their meeting had been a chance encounter. But now she wondered. "And what is Mr. Stingenson doing in Kotor, besides buying extra tickets to the opera?"  
  
  
"Business," he replies easily. It would be easy enough to just leave it at that, but the way that she looks at him indicated that she was probably suspecting that he'd planned to meet her.  
  
He decides to continue: "The spider's gone, but I'm dusting out the webs."  
  
  
An expression of enlightenment crosses her face, but she still doesn't stop studying him. Because she remembers still that she had been part of Moriarty's web. A brief one, no doubt, but one nonetheless, and he was here. And it was best not to let sentimentality get in the way, not again.  
  
"Should I be worried then?"  
  
  
"It depends," he says, "Do you not have an outfit to wear to the opera?"  
  
  
That makes her laugh, and it was an easier, more genuine sound than it had ever been when she was Irene Adler. Probably because Alissa Carrington didn't have as much to hide, or as much to lose.  
  
"I'm certain I can manage. Dinner beforehand?"  
  
  
"What are you doing in Montenegro?" he asks.  
  
Dinner. There was always so much wrapped up in that word for him. Whenever John would ask Sherlock if he wanted dinner, it never meant anything but that. But with the Woman---no matter who she was being at the moment---it always meant more. It meant the promise of something Sherlock wasn't certain he understood.  
  
  
So death (or at least perceived death) hadn't changed him _that_ much. That was almost comforting, in its own way. A knowing smile tugged at the corners of her lips as she answers, "The weather is lovely this time of year and I'm less likely to encounter old friends." A half truth.  
  
"Does it really matter?"  
  
  
He shrugs. "Being a simple French journalist, I wouldn't want to interrupt."  
  
At least she hadn't changed far too much. Her new persona is more relaxed, certainly, but the Woman underneath it is still secretive. He likes that. He liked that when he saw her, everything didn't immediately appear next to her. She is a challenge.  
  
  
The simple French journalist and the vacationing American opera singer. It sounds less absurd than the consulting detective and the dominatrix. But that was really the only thing that's changed between them. The titles, the hair colours, the window dressing.  
  
Beneath it all is the old tension. That relentless push of wills. She's missed that. Not that she'd admit it.  
  
She shifts in her seat on the bed, crossing her legs. "And what are the consulting detective's thoughts on the matter, Mr. Holmes?"  
  
  
Sherlock misses being the consulting detective. He misses the cases, he misses the mental stimulation. While pretending to be someone so simple is interesting in itself, it isn't the same as being the man he was. He takes a drag of his cigarette.  
  
"The consulting detective has a broom and a web," he says. He considers his words carefully. Montenegro was a big place, and he could use an assistant. He knows himself well enough to know that he was capable of handling things on his own, but not as efficiently.  
  
"And the dominatrix?"  
  
  
"The dominatrix is retired. Or unemployed, I haven't quite decided which."  
  
Her answer is flippant, but there is a truth to it that she has no doubt he would hear. The tacit admission of uncertainty cloaked in a veneer of control. Irene rests a hand on her chin, unconsciously mimicking the way she'd greeted him the first time they'd met, albeit this time clothed, and watches him carefully.  
  
"I like the hair."  
  
  
"It's very unlike Sherlock Holmes, I think," he says. He missed his own hair, if he was honest. His own flat, his own bed. He liked having familiar things around himself. It made the complexities of his own mind and his cases more...manageable. He also missed John, though that had very little to do with liking familiar things around himself, he imagined.  
  
He pulls another cigarette from its pack and puts it to his lips. Since leaving London, he'd given up the pretense of trying to quit. He needs to think. He needs to work out what he needs to do. He also needs to work out why he wanted to spend time with the Woman, when alerting her to his presence would only endanger things.  
  
"The braid doesn't suit you."

 

She doesn't bother to say anything about whether or not the hair being unlike Sherlock Holmes is why she likes it. Mostly she had been interested in his reaction to it, though even that had given her painfully little to go on. But then he never did give her much to go on, not if he could help it. It is part of the challenge.  
  
Irene rests her hands on the bed and leans on them slightly, as if the shift in position gives her a better vantage point or better understanding of the man sitting across from her in the chair. Her gaze flickers to follow the motion of the cigarette, and she laughs quietly at his words.  
  
"It suits Miss Carrington." It wasn't a denial of his statement, but a gleam brightens in her eyes as her gaze lingers on the tailored shirt and crisp trousers. Far more like him than the costume of the French journalist. "Or would you have preferred I came like our first meeting?"  
  
  
"You'd have made quite a splash at reception," he replies with a small smile. Miss Carrington and Irene Adler were very different people, he decides. It was what made the disguise so perfect, they were utterly unalike, but they still contain the Woman without too much difficulty.  
  
"Still a self portrait, though," he says, ashing into the tray. "If anyone who could see was looking."  
  
  
She smiles at his remark, the dominatrix's cool amusement touched with something warming, more genuine. She had missed this interplay, this challenge. Rebuilding her network, her clientele was challenging, yes, but it was a problem that could be solved, static and only requiring brute force. Sherlock Holmes, on the other hand, is a game, one with a moving target that required finesse, and her mind thrills to it.  
  
"And what kind of self-portrait are you painting, Mr. Holmes?" She likes turning things back on him, because it keeps the conversation interesting, keeps it away from her. "The alias suggests someone extraordinary trying desperately to pretend to be ordinary."  
  
  
He ignores her attempts to put the magnifying lens over him and tilts his head to the side.  
  
"An opera singer recovering from throat surgery," he says. "American in Montenegro. A foreign diva rebuilding what she had taken away from her. Privately, mind."  
  
He doesn't doubt she is rebuilding clients and misbehaving. The idea of the Woman giving up her life was actually more tragic than the thought of her dying and simply not existing. It would be a half-life for her, and would be almost like a shell of what she could be. He'd never want that.  
  
  
She doesn't acknowledge his guess. Because he knew he was right and she knew he thought he was right and it was not impressive enough a deduction to warrant threatening to have her way with him until he begged for mercy.  
  
Though she does wonder what his reaction would be now that there was no John Watson for him to deflect to.  
  
Maybe if he did something actually impressive.  
  
"And the French journalist?" She rises from her seat and crosses the little room, standing just out of arm's reach of his chair. "Restless, unhappy, and craving something he can't satisfy. Pretending he's doing something for the common good. You should have used this one instead of the vicar."  
  
  
"I'm not pretending," he says.  
  
He wishes it was some sort of a game, he wishes that he knew there'd be 221B to go back to when this was all done, that he could count on John to have the tea made. Instead, he is alone, wandering, trying to fix something before it became too big, and hoping that home would be there when he returned. Hoping. That was a new feeling. He removes it from his mind immediately.  
  
He keeps himself in the chair and watches her move, careful to take in every single one of her movements. Never easy to read, that was one of the things about her that fascinates him.  
  
  
She only stops moving once she is standing in front of him again, still just out of arm's reach, looking down, watching him with the same intensity, taking in every muscle tick, every blink and motion. She doesn't deduce, she discerns. The vocabulary is different but there were always results.  
  
"And here I thought that cleaning Jim Moriarty's house was the final phase of the game, to prove once and for all that you've beaten him." She studies him intently, but her expression gives away little of what she sees. "Death _has_ been good to you."  
  
  
"Has it?" he says, sounding unimpressed and trying to brush it off. Her compliments and comments always startle him by how quickly and how much they affect him. He can't let her see that.  
  
"Here I thought it simply made me ginger."  
  
There is no game anymore, not really. None of these people out here are worth playing with. The whole thing is nothing short of _tedious_ , because there was so much that Sherlock wishes he were doing instead.  
  
  
She doesn't respond to the feeble joke (if it were a joke at all, with him it was sometimes hard to tell), the faint, archly amused smile that played on her face fading away as she studied him. She'd come for one reason and one reason only, or so she'd told herself. Out of curiosity, to know why he'd pulled the same trick for himself. But now that she knows, Irene realises that hadn't been the only reason.  
  
There had been curiosity, yes, but there had been more than that. He could have walked away without a word, could have let her think the encounter was a figment of her imagination. But he'd stopped her, had given her the address. That little incongruity pokes at her thoughts now that the surprise of seeing him in the flesh had faded.  
  
"There's just one thing I can't figure out," she muses, looking down at him with the piercing, weighing look of the dominatrix that the opera singer disguise couldn't hide. "Why did you stop me?"  
  
  
"The trick with your password and the cameraphone?" he asks, all innocence.  
  
He knows very well that wasn't what she'd meant.

  
  
  
She steps closer, close enough to reach out and run the tip of her finger along his collar. But she is careful not to touch skin as she answers, "Try again."  
  
  
He can feel the heat of her skin ghosting just above his collar, but keeps his eyes on hers. It feels like a duel, like he had to make sure he wasn't the first to break contact, to stop the stalemate.  
  
"No doubt the same reason you came," he says. Also not an answer.  
  
  
The corner of her lips twitches in a ghost of a smile at that, but she doesn't move away or break eye contact. "And what do you deduce is the reason for _that_?"  
  
She thinks it is lucky that the question fit into the cadence of their interplay. She is genuinely curious what he thought her motives were.  
  
  
"Curiosity," he replies without hesitation. "You wanted to see for certain that I am who you expected."  
  
That was why he stopped her, but once he knew she was in fact the Woman, he should've just left. He should've left and never looked back. He didn't.  
  
He is still working on why he didn't.  
  
  
Almost.  
  
It was more than curiosity, and Irene wonders idly if he realized that, or if he is simply offering the benefit of the doubt. She doubted the latter, but sometimes with Sherlock Holmes... well that was part of what had made the game worth playing the last time. And why life after Pakistan had been so restless, so dull.  
  
Even the prospect of misbehaving, of rebuilding had been more of a necessity than interest. Playing the games of power with clients who didn't realize they were chess pieces lost its appeal.  
  
"Something like that."  
  
  
"The opera, then?" he says, crushing out his cigarette and steepling his fingers. He isn't really all that interested in the opera, and is far more interested in seeing if the Woman will follow up this, if she'd actually appear. If she doesn't, that would be too bad. If she does, that would change a lot about the game he was playing out here. Possibly for the worst, or for the better. Always difficult to tell with her.  
  
His lips twitch just the slightest bit. "Dinner?"  
  
  
A slow, enigmatic smile spreads over her face. He might have been absolutely rubbish at talking to women, or even talking to people without them wanting to punch him in the face, but there was one thing he was _very_ good at.  
  
Drawing her back into the game.  
  
Irene takes a step back, out of his personal space, and taps a finger against her lips. She would go, of course, but the devil was in the details. Whether she would go as someone he would recognize or not. As Irene Adler or Alissa Carrington or some other self-portrait, a challenge to see if he can discover, now _that_ would be the question.  
  
"Perhaps. Who is asking?"  
  
  
He raises an eyebrow, all challenges.  
  
"Who would you want to ask?"  
  
  
That makes her laugh. Death _has_ been good to him. To both of them. Maybe there was something freeing about being living ghosts of their former selves, that they could shed some of the things that had fettered them before.  
  
Or maybe she was just bored.  
  
"Tonight's performance or tomorrow's?"  
  
  
"Tonight," he says, and immediately realizes he'd told her earlier that he already had tickets for tomorrow. Nevermind. She'd have worked it out sooner or later. Calling her 'moderately clever' as he had so long ago seemed like an insult as he began to get to know her.  
  
"Unless you're busy," he amends.  
  
  
The laugh fades to a satisfied, soundless smile, and it is his answer that decides it for her, that Irene Adler will be the one making an appearance at the MSC Opera. There would be time later for the disguises, time later to play the other games that they never seemed to be able to stop playing around each other.  
  
"That depends on who you're asking."  
  
  
He let out the huff of a sigh, pretending to be far more irritated than he actually feels. He _missed_ this. This challenge. She was so much more than that, of course.  
  
"Back in circles again," he says, getting to his feet. "But I think we both know there's only one of you I would invite to the opera."  
  
This is, of course, a terrible, terrible idea. Diversion would keep him from coming back to life, from being back in Baker Street, where he belonged. But, then again, living in the world of the not-dead meant some time with the Woman. And that, well, that was appealing.  
  
  
Terrible ideas were her bread and butter, but as far as terrible ideas went, this one was tame. But then, the worst part of it had already come and gone, the realization, the mutual acknowledgement of who they were, where they were. The exchange of aliases.  
  
The opera was perfectly sedate compared to that.  
  
But it wasn't the opera; the opera was just another move in the game, in the inescapable orbit they drew around each other. Which, she supposed, _did_ make it a terrible idea. And just up her alley.  
  
She doesn't move when he rises, not just yet, wanting to see what he would do.  
  
"How fortunate. The dead don't have plans to cancel."  
  
  
He wants to argue. He wants to have something, anything to contradict her. Because she is right, and he has nothing to cancel tonight, and no excuses. But contradicting her is part of the fun.  
  
And this _is_ fun.  
  
He nods. "Seven, then."  
  
  
The contradictions are part of the fun. Just as the texts sent off into the great silence had been fun. Because she'd known he'd read them, even if he did never answer. Just as she had been certain he'd never changed the ring tone.  
  
She smiles then and heads for the door. "You'll have to find me first. Don't be late."  
  
  
Be late? He wouldn't dream of it. As for finding her, that isn't entirely difficult, either. He knows her profession, knows what alias she was going by, and even knows what direction she lived in. It wouldn't be too difficult. Difficult would be acquiring opera tickets at this short a juncture. He'll phone in, work something out.


	3. A Night at the Opera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meetings both accidental and deliberate lead to a challenge and an opportunity to shed disguises for a night for the recently deceased Sherlock Holmes and the late Irene Adler. But are there ulterior motives for the invitation?

By seven, he is waiting in front of her hotel in a tuxedo. Feeling like he stood out, which he probably does, even with the auburn hair. The Woman often makes him feel like throwing caution to the wind.

  
A luxury towncar rolls up to the hotel at precisely 7:07, its recent wax and too-practiced driver clearly indicating a rental. It was unnecessary in this little town with its old winding roads, but it affords privacy and an air of cultivated mystery and Irene Adler did like to make an entrance.  
  
The driver gets out and coughs discreetly behind the waiting man in the tuxedo. "Your car, sir."  
  
  
"Excuse me," he says with his heavy French accent, as though he hadn't understood what the man was offering.  
  
It could be the Woman. Balance of probability said it was. But then again, he hadn't been cautious. It could be someone else.  
  
  
The dark tinted passenger side window rolls down at the emergence of Mr. Stingenson, and a familiar voice, filled with arch amusement, answers, "Changed your mind?"  
  
If Sherlock glanced into the car, he would have seen the sheen of midnight silk, perhaps a glimpse of pale leg in a slit in said silk. The rest of Irene Adler, for she was very much Irene Adler again with the blood red lipstick and intricate coiffure, waits for him in the dim shadow.  
  
  
"Cautious, Miss Carrington," he says. "Not cowardly."  
  
He doesn't bother hiding the smile that touches his lips this time. He steps forward, allowing the man behind him to open the door before settling himself inside. It wasn't until the door shut that he drops his accent.  
  
"Hired a car. I'm impressed."  
  
  
She meets the driver's eye in the mirror and gives him a near imperceptible nod, not turning her attention back to Sherlock until the car is in motion. And when she does, it _is_ with her complete attention.  
  
The dress she wears clung to every curve, fitting like a second skin, emphasizing the pale bare skin that almost glowed against the dark blue-black. Not that she had chosen it only for its looks, but also for the fact that it was obviously well-made and just as obviously had never been worn before, without hints of past wear or wash.  
  
She smiles back, all mystery and enigma, and taps a slim finger along the console between them. "Seemed the least I should do, since you made the effort to get last minute opera tickets."  
  
  
"Well, I certainly don't know what the man at the door likes," he says, his lips twisting into a small smile. This---whatever it had become between them---was new and interesting, but part of him longs for the Woman the way she had been; all confidence and whips and sexuality he didn't understand.  
  
At least the banter is familiar. He could work out the details later.  
  
"Balcony seating."  
  
  
"Neither do I, but I can tell you at the door."  
  
It is an offer, though even Irene isn't quite certain exactly what it is an offer for. She had meant for it to be exactly what it sounded like on the surface. Showing off. Something they both knew well, but as the words left her lips she realized there was more to it than that.  
  
She only wish she knew for certain what that more was.  
  
She glances out through the tinted glass at the picturesque city rolling by slowly around them, remembering a time when she had not felt so uncertain around him. A part of her missed it, even if the uncertainty was far more interesting.  
  
"Balcony seating recommends itself to paying more attention to one's surroundings than the show. Should I be flattered?"  
  
  
He raises an eyebrow at the offer. That was something he'd rather like to see, actually. The Woman's intellect was something he admired, a cunning that could rival his own. There were very, very few people in the world who he could say that about.  
  
"Hardly," he retorts. "When two dead people go to the opera, however, privacy should be top priority. In disguise or not. Together we're twice as likely to be noticed."  
  
And yet, he is still in the car with her. Still going. Not turning around like every logical sense in his body was telling him to.  
  
  
"You say that like everyone knows how to look for the dead walking," she counters with a smile. "And we _both_ know that's not true."  
  
She settles back in her seat, all confident sexuality and expectant intelligence. "I'm surprised. Do simple French journalists usually expect to need formalwear?"  
  
  
"Of course not," he replies smoothly. "He all but scrambled to find something suitable."  
  
Sherlock only ha a limited wardrobe to carry with him through this excursion. A few shirts, a dress shirt, and some trousers. The tuxedo had been a pleasant splurge, and the fine fabric felt more at home than the journalist's scratchy shirts ever would. They did, however, somewhat knock him out of his persona.  
  
Or perhaps that was the woman in front of him.  
  
  
Something in his answer deepens her smile, and Irene chuckles quietly at it as the hired car approached the venue. "The recovering diva's flattered."  
  
She shifts, crossing her legs, the motion flashing pale skin. Irene k it wouldn't distract him, that's too easy, too much the physical, but she does it anyway, because she's missed the dominatrix, and even as she begins to misbehave again she is still cautious, testing the waters. And because there is always the chance that he will think it's something else, something calculating masquerading as the physical and that is _always_ the best part. Trying to outthink him as he tried to do the same.  
  
"You could have gone to the Minister of Commerce, at least about the tickets. Very susceptible to the promise of a little good publicity. And he knew a mutual friend."  
  
  
His mind immediately goes to the possibility that there was something more going on. Such an act, a simple thing, couldn't just be out of _comfort_. The Woman didn't need to distract him with her body, he knew every inch from memory. No, this was something else. His eyes narrow, just for a second. What is he missing?  
  
"I might have you introduce us," he says, calmly. "I'd love to see just _how_ you'd approach such an introduction."  
  
  
Her eyes all but dance as she watches him, catching the momentary miniscule shift in his expression. Irene's own smile is wicked, at ease, and utterly amused, very much the dominatrix who had first greeted him in nothing but a pair of stiletto Louboutins.  
  
"That would depend on you, of course. On how intimate an introduction you'd want to the good minister." A pause. "Not that good of a minister though, given the kind of pies he has his fingers in."  
  
  
"Tell me more," he says, tapping his fingertip to the side of his face and affecting a truly interested look. He knew all about the minister, all about his ties to Moriarty and how many strings he pulled. He also knows that it would be dangerous, if they acquired too intimate an introduction too quickly. He couldn't have the Woman's alias disrupted.  
  
  
"That would be telling, now wouldn't it?" She pauses as the car rolls to a stop, and the driver gets out to open the doors. "And since when did I ever give up information that easily?"  
  
  
"Never," he replies, his own lips curling up into a smile. And that's precisely how he prefers it.  
  
He waits for her to exit first. It's not that he doesn't trust her---no, actually, it's exactly because he doesn't trust her.  
  
  
She waits for the driver to open the door and offer a hand before she gets out in a ripple of fluid silk and elegant ease. She tries to remind herself how dangerous it is, to slip back into Irene Adler's old habits, but it is an unexpected indulgence to shed the Carrington persona for a day.  
  
She stands and waits outside the car, that same smile on her lips as she takes in the crowd. The man at the door. She doesn't look at her companion to see if he has gotten out of the car, but when she judges that enough time has passed for him to have, she asks, "Expected me to have him drive away if you got out first?"  
  
  
"One of us has the alias of a gentleman," he replies, stepping out after her. His French accent has slipped back on, though he doesn't bother with the persona as well. It's more for security than anything else.  
  
He offers her his arm.  
  
"Your deductions?" he asks, nodding his head to the man at the door as they approach.  
  
  
Her eyes practically gleam at the question as she takes his arm. They are so striking a pair that they get a few glances from the crowd. Not enough to be worried about, but it deepens Irene's smile. She _does_ enjoy a good entrance.  
  
"Failed theatre actor. Bitter. Unhappy. Hovers around what he can't have. Harbors delusions of being aggressive and domineering," she answers, a touch of the American creeping back into her voice. Not as strong as before, but enough that she doesn't sound _exactly_ like herself despite everything else. A laugh creeps into her voice as she murmurs, "I could have him kissing my shoes in three minutes."  
  
  
A strange sort of feeling of arousal shoots down his spine at that comment. She _could_ have almost any man here on their knees in front of her, and part of him wouldn't want it any other way. He could never possess the Woman, and he would never want to. Her power, her abilities, they are part of what makes her so utterly desirable to him. Knowing that she hasn't lost that, even in death, is enticing.  
  
"Woman taking tickets," he says, nodding in her direction.  
  
  
She gives him a look that somehow manages to be both deeply amused and smoldering. Irene doesn't generally show off, as a rule. As the dominatrix she had cultivated a careful persona of at once inviting being underestimated despite steely strength of personality because it had kept her clientele ignorant of her real aims. She'd even taken Moriarty's advice when he'd given it, letting him give her the little gifts of information, of knowledge, without letting on just how much of it she could have gotten herself.  
  
And caution had been her operative word since taking on the Carrington persona. The foreign diva didn't need to be watchful, to be cunning and razor witted.  
  
It had only really been against Sherlock Holmes that she'd been able to play the game, to _really_ indulge in it. And there is an undeniable thrill to it, just as there had been when she'd realized his thought process, the way he solved the mystery of the sportsman killed by his boomerang.  
  
She gives the woman taking tickets a glance. A few seconds of attention, no more. She can see why he finds showing off appealing. "Oh, I _like_ her," she murmurs appreciatively as they approach, "The diva's understudy. Repressed. Channels all of her frustration into the music. Too proud to sleep with the director, but if she did she'd wring his neck."  
  
She laughs, low and throaty, as she nods to their left and continues, "Dowager. Hasn't stopped staring at your backside since we got out of the car."  
  
  
"I remind her of her former lover," he replies. "The French accent, the body style. She still wears the bracelet he gave her ten years ago. Expensive. He probably ran off and she still thinks about him."  
  
The journalist doesn't need to be as observant. Just enough to look like an investigative journalist, but not the same cunning as the consulting detective. He doesn't need to see the things he does, much like he doesn't need to find the Woman's abilities intriguing. All the same, he can't turn it off. He can't become someone else, no matter how easily he slips into new personas.  
  
He retrieves the tickets from his pocket and hands them to the man at the door. The opera is even less interesting than it was to begin with. The company, however, has awakened something he's very nearly forgotten he wants.  
  
  
That earns him another low murmur of laughter, the sort of thing anyone who'd glance at them would dismiss, the sort of laughter pretty women always offered their companions if said companions were charming or handsome enough. But she knows it is more than that, that _he'll_ know it's more than that even without a word.  
  
"Almost," she answers, without a glance back. "She chased him off, after she realized he wanted the inheritance she pretended she still had."  
  
  
"Regretting what they might've had if money hadn't been in the way," he agrees. "Sentiment."  
  
Is that what this is? He assumes it must be. They are very strange, he realizes. Too strange for the rest of the world. Ordinary people, the sort of people that Jim despised, they wouldn't communicate with low laughs and sidelong glances. They wouldn't make observations about old ladies and failed actors into flirtation. And yet, he and the Woman did that eloquently.  
  
"Dwindled her money on...gambling debts, I think."  
  
  
"We all have our little moments of sentiment." And maybe, just maybe, they aren't as different from the masses around them. After all, they were here. Conversing. Keeping company. The fact that they were people meant to be dead didn't matter, nor did the flavour of conversation.  
  
She looks intrigued by his observation. "I would have expected squandered to well-meaning artist-friends."  
  
  
“No, she's too clever for that," he says. "But look at her thumb. Traces of scratch-offs. Also, her wrist. Callous on the right palm, from leaning against a machine. Probably a slot machine, which can be seen from her shoes. Expensive, high-heeled. With her hips, walking in something like that is dangerous, an unnecessary risk. She does it because she likes the thrill of being the only lady her age to wear heels like that."  
  
Inside the opera hall, they're surrounded by more people, more life stories to pull up with only a few glances. He can see practical things, things that tell motive, tell the past. The Woman can see desires, she can tell what they _like_ , what they want.  
  
  
It sounds so simple, so positively elementary with explanation, but then Irene supposed if he had been able to see the training in the way the woman at the door held her body, or the way the bitter actor didn't and had just a shade too asymmetric a nose and too deeply bitter a frown, it would have been simple too. But she keeps that to herself, because a woman has to have her secrets, and The Woman enjoys her secrets far more than most.  
  
The eddies of humanity, of quietly bustling society, swirl around them in the opera hall, each individual's story writ plain on the faces, in their body language and the tiny minutiae of life that clings to them. A young man, eager to escape whatever relation had insisted on bringing him for culture, ducks by and Irene sways out of his way and into Sherlock's. "I can do this all evening, if you can keep up."  
  
And it's somehow challenge, invitation, and innuendo all at once.  
  
  
If it were a day where they had other things---the cases, the clients, the lives they had back in London---he'd have, no doubt, ignored the innuendo and continued on with the things they had. But they are here, dead in Kotor, and it suddenly feels like there is all the time in the world. His smile is more of a smirk, but it is absolutely genuine.  
  
"I imagine you'll tire long before I do," he says.  
  
  
An unexpected thrill races up her spine at his response. It's nothing as simple or as easy to ignore as physical attraction, but the undeniable, heady rush of challenge, the promise of matching wits with someone who would put up a worthwhile fight.  
  
And even the prospect of losing.  
  
She'd missed this. Had not even realized how dull things had been until she'd caught that glimpse of him earlier in the day.  
  
She doesn't sway back away once the boy (fond of video games, full of repressed curiosity, and probably a penchant for being tied up if he ever admitted the repressed curiosity) had passed. The moment, his tone, both invited the physical intimacy as well as the intellectual challenge, the contrast of warm skin and cool silk.  
  
"Not before you've begged for mercy. Twice."  
  
  
"How very ambitious of you," he replies. He's had women attempt to seduce him before. Women, and the occasional man. They've never come close. The Woman doesn't need her whips or her chains or the high slit of a dress to reel him in. Her voice, her mind, it all hooks into him and he finds his heart rate rising at the challenge.  
  
His voice is low, the French accent fading away into a purr as his mind stops thinking about the alias. "Woman, white dress. Having an affair with her secretary. Entirely sentimental. Probably promised her some sort of a better life afterwards, but refuses to leave the man she's married to. Too much money there."  
  
  
"This wouldn't be half as interesting if I weren't."  
  
Her eyes flicker to the woman in question, and Irene chuckles, the sound low and velvety with pleasure, as she catches sight of said woman in the expensive white dress. "Wants to share the pretty secretary _with_ her husband," she murmurs back. "Probably doesn't even realize it herself. Might not ever and just chalk it up to the thrill."  
  
Her hand continues to rest lightly on his arm as she nods towards the sweeping staircase that leads to be balcony. "One person in here's got a little problem with public nudity, got caught one too many times dancing in the fjord without a stitch on. Tell me who."  
  
  
His eyes sweep the crowd and he smirks. "Child's play," he says. "Stuffy man with the large moustache. He feels incredibly uncomfortable in his clothes, continually pulls at them and looks to the door. He wants to be home and naked immediately. Also, there's a bit of mud on his shoe. He's the nature-loving sort."  
  
He picks someone out for her.  
  
"Two people who met on the internet but have yet to recognize each other."  
  
  
She pauses in her steps to take a look around the room, her eyes sweeping over the people. Her pulse doesn't _race_ , but even Irene will admit to a certain excitement, a certain thrill in this.  
  
"The man in the tuxedo in the corner, fidgeting with his pocket square. No one wears a shade like that unless they want to be noticed, and that colour's distinctive enough to not be mistaken from a cameraphone photo. And the blonde in the pearls near the door. Not used to the heels, doesn't even like the opera but wants to appear sophisticated. She'd have done better going for some bloke who'd wanted to meet over a few pints." A pause as a faint frown mars her brow, and the frown fades as her eyes pick up something else.  
  
"Oh, but they're not meeting each other. Third one's meeting them both. Separately."  
  
  
Oh, she's good. He finds his smile is curling a little. She sees as much as he does. He can't say there are a lot of people like that in the world.  
  
"Very good. Who?"  
  
  
She gives him a sidelong glance. And if her eyes are a little dilated, well, there is no helping that.  
  
"You tell me."  
  
  
He turns to look at the Woman. "Man, dark blue suit." He doesn't bother looking away from her, he's already memorized the man. "White pocket square. Canadian, nonsmoker, cat owner. He's planning to meet the woman first, then the man. And then makes it a goal to sleep with both of them in this opera house before he leaves."  
  
  
The temptation is to look, to find the man in the dark blue suit and figure out the minutiae that has given the man away, but to look away would be defeat, to admit to _needing_ that moment to look. So Irene doesn't look away, and some part of her wonders how the entire opera house can be so utterly blind to what is happening in their midst.  
  
"The man will be easy. He's the type to respond to internet ads, the kind that likes the thrill." Her smile grows. "Setting himself up a challenge, but too much pride. He'll never make it, not with her to convince."  
  
  
"Funny, I thought it would be the other way around," he says. "She's lonely, he's not desperate enough. Six different men in this house will leave with him if he doesn't find what he wants with that man."  
  
In truth, he's fairly certain both of them are pathetic enough to fall in line with the one in the dark suit. All the same, contradicting the Woman is one of his most favorite things. The battle, the fight between them.  
  
They're going to be caught if they keep this up. For some reason, that just thrills him.  
  
  
Her eyes narrow at his line of reasoning, though Irene does not bother hiding her smile. She is enjoying this far too much, because it has been far too long since she's had the opportunity, because there's never been anyone who is as interesting a challenge as Sherlock Holmes.  
  
"She's lonely, not desperate. I know the difference."  
  
  
"Lonely long enough breeds desperation," Sherlock reminds her.  
  
Perhaps that's the reason for this. The two of them, dead to the rest of the world, and just a touch lonely. Not that either of them would admit it. He might deduce that the Woman might be lonely, though he'd never consider her desperate. Not except for that one moment, so long ago, where he denied her her protection.  
  
  
The thought had crossed her mind more than once, when she had first seen him that afternoon (had it only been that afternoon?) and when she had been trying to decide whether to come to the hotel. And again as she arranged for the car. Bought the dress. Even as they walked in.  
  
Her voice is pitched low, private, when she answers, "Is that deduction or personal experience, Mr. Holmes?"  
  
  
"Alone keeps me safe," he says. It's just a shade of defensive, he realizes with no small amount of irritation. That sort of a defensive stance could easily turn the tides of this very carefully constructed battle. He can't let her get too much ground on him. He can't let her _win_.  
  
"Ah," he says. "Someone you know."  
  
  
Her smile deepens and even the opera house as entertainment, as structure and setting for whatever this was, this dance, this game, this complex battle of wills, fades a little more into the background. Trappings of whatever _this_ was, something to hang it on.  
  
Her voice remains low, almost a purr, as she continues, "And here I thought safe was boring."  
  
  
"Oh, if I thought you were even remotely boring----"  
  
It is a thought that doesn't need completing. He knows that the Woman could never be boring. Not even if she tried. Not even out here, pretending to be dead in London. She's already weaving herself into this place, and he knows it's only a matter of time before he starts to see the traces of her misbehavior.  
  
"If you were going to commit a crime here, where would you do it?" This equates to small talk.  
  
  
It's a compliment, and she knows it. Knows that he means it as such and that he knows she'd take it as such. She can figure out what people like, what they want, easily but there are few people in the world that are both as simultaneously mysterious and interesting as he is.  
  
"Crimes are for people like Jim Moriarty. I misbehave." Her smile grows wicked, and despite the low, intimate tone her amusement is clear as day. "And what do you mean 'if'?"  
  
  
Something akin to grief moves through Sherlock at the mention of Jim. He doesn't think of it as grief, not really. Certainly not in the way he felt the loss of the Woman the first time she pretended to die. No, it is the loss of a great enemy, and to something as _idiotic_ as having to win. In the end, Sherlock wins. Or will win, once all of this is done.  
  
"No, think _crime_ ," he says, the word a whisper, something scandalous said between two conspiring lovers. "Something dangerous and vicious. Cold weapons and lives ruined. Where?"  
  
  
She laughs at that, low and silken and almost inaudible, the very sound like a physical caress, full of potential and possibility. "Are you trying to seduce me, Mr. Holmes?" she murmurs, her fingers sliding along the length of his tuxedo clad arm.  
  
As she thinks, her lips curve into a smile, bright red and sickle sharp. "The cathedral."  
  
  
"You're the expert," he says. "You tell me."  
  
He looks down at his arm, where her long nails are brushing against the fabric of his tuxedo. This slight contact, the way she runs them seductively, reminds him of the first time she touched his arm, and then he felt a needle going through his other arm in the next second. But that is them, isn't it? The pleasure with the pain. He wouldn't want it any other way.  
  
He arches an eyebrow. "The cathedral." It makes sense, but he wants to see _her_ line of thinking.  
  
  
There's no need to answer that question, and to press or to dodge would only distract from the point of this game, from seeing where it would lead. Besides, the answer had been clear since the night she sent him her last text.  
  
"What better place is there to fall from grace than the seat of the Church? In front of friends, family, and everyone?" she asks. Dramatic, audacious, and terrifying to the inhabitants of a place like this, where the Church still made its presence felt. It was exactly up her alley.  
  
  
"Mmmm, you go for irony over function, then," he replies. "But then again, that's very you." To another person, this might've been an insult. For the Woman, her style is something that he takes very seriously. He would never have considered the cathedral, would've never thought to make sure it was just as humiliating as possible.  
  
"Let's consider your cruelty noted," he says, curling his lips into another smile.  
  
  
"The sting's as important as the mark the whip leaves behind. You should remember that," she answers with that same sharp smile. From somewhere within the swirling crowd, a chime begins to sound. The signal for seating to take place before the performance began.  
  
Irene wasn't sure she cared.  
  
"And what exact is my cruelty being noted for?"  
  
  
"Future use," he says. He starts up the stairs again towards their seats. It's a small box, giving them not a fantastic view of the stage, but plenty of privacy. It also gives Sherlock a very good view of another box, not far away.  
  
She is going to be the distraction. One he very much does not want to give up, but must at _some_ point in the evening.  
  
  
"Oh? Perhaps I'll have to keep an eye on the papers." She gives him a sidelong glance, intrigued, before scrutinizing their surroundings. It's become a habit, ever since she'd gone into hiding. She dislikes the idea, the reminder, but she dislikes the idea of being dead far more.  
  
Partial view of the stage. Out of the way of the audience. Easy access to the exit. Better than she would have expected given the short timespan between her leaving his hotel and his appearance outside hers.  
  
  
"I wouldn't expect you to do anything less," he says. "I've certainly kept an eye out for you."  
  
He almost winces at that admission. Admitting he's looked for the Woman is almost admitting that he's wanted to find her. It's more than he prefers to show. She already knows he looked for her after the confrontation, that he appeared in Karachi, but she doesn't need to know he failed to give her up even after that.  
  
The lights begin to dim. He doesn't even bother looking towards the stage.  
  
  
The admission sits warm and pleasant inside Irene, like the welcome burn of alcohol. It's not a victory, but an unexpected confirmation, an unexpected pleasure, and her smile deepens, the razor sharp edge fading into knowing self-assurance.  
  
She lets her hand fall from his arm and back to her side as she takes a seat. The orchestra is tuning up and the last ripples of conversation in the crowd begin to fade. Irene gives the stage a cursory glance, then turns her focus back to the most interesting thing in the venue.  
  
"I'm flattered you still know where to look."  
  
  
The response is as natural as breathing. "Don't be. The last thing I want is for you to be so obvious that my brother might realize you're alive. He'd realize it was with my help, and then he might start looking at my death more closely. Despite how foolish he _can_ be, my brother is intelligent enough to see through even my best laid plans. Barring that he looks."  
  
Focusing his attention past the Woman will surely draw her attention. Instead, he decides to lean towards her, as if to whisper in her ear. It gives him a clear view of the opposite box, and doesn't give away where he's looking.  
  
With other people, such a simple movement and so easy a diversion would be less than a second's thought in his head. Conversation is easy---with other people. The Woman makes it difficult. Conversations with her are battles. The kind he doesn't want to end.  
  
  
She almost bristles at that. But to do so would be a concession, and she is as determined to win as ever, dead or alive. So instead she laughs softly, turning her attention away from him and back to the stage, to the audience.  
  
"But you looked all the same. Something tells me you didn't find anything until this afternoon, and it wasn't in the paper."  
  
  
"Yes."  
  
Also something he wasn't intending on saying. It's true, however, so he doesn't feel too upset about saying it. He didn't see anything until he noticed her, until he could see it was her. And then, he revealed himself in order to be certain. His own fault. Not something he's complaining too much about.  
  
He notices that from where her hair is pulled up, there is a slight curl of hair at the nape of her neck. From where he is positioned, he can see it clearly, coming into focus over the box he's supposed to be looking at. He lets his thumb and forefinger lift up so he can touch it. Just once, just for scientific curiosity's sake.  
  
  
Her smile remains archly amused as she takes in the audience, and her posture is utterly at ease, confident and self-possessed as ever, even as she feels the touch at the nape of her neck. The radiating warmth and the unexpected touch prickle, and she leans close to either murmur or invite further intimacy.  
  
"Minister's here. New mistress, I don't recognize her." A pause. "Or a stepdaughter. Hard to tell with him."  
  
  
"Both," he says. He finds himself taking in a breath and smelling her hair near him. One of the biggest downfalls of picking back up the smoking habit (and one of the primary reasons he gave it up to begin with) is that his ability to smell has decreased somewhat. All the same, there's something strangely exotic about her scent. It's not on his list of perfumes and their related motivations that is still up on his website. Something to add to his brain for future references.  
  
"Dress is formal, cut at a line that's meant to be conservative for those who are looking. Yet when he led her to her seat, he put his hand at the small of her back and she didn't even look towards him. That gives an air of complete familiarity."  
  
  
She'd read that list of perfumes a literal lifetime ago and had been pleased then that hers hadn't been on there. Would be even more pleased now, no doubt, if she had known exactly what he was thinking. But then if she could predict him, he would be nowhere near as interesting.  
  
She keeps an eye on the minister as a whispered breath of warm air ghosts across her skin. "Not my type. But it's a scandal waiting to happen," she muses. "Hard to prove though. A stepdaughter can be almost anywhere a mistress can without raising the same suspicion."  
  
  
"It leaves him with a slice of vulnerability, though. A mistress and a daughter, that lends itself towards emotional attachments." And while Sherlock sits, now, just a breath away from the Woman who beat him, from the Woman who could very easily undo everything he's worked for with just a few words, he _still_ won't allow himself to admit sentimentality.  
  
It's much easier to simply stay here, stay flirting with an edge that belongs to only them, than to admit anything more.  
  
  
Her amused expression turns wry and she leans forward, ostensibly to get a better look at the audience. A smatter of applause rises from the audience as the conductor takes his place, but Irene barely pays attention to it.  
  
"You say that like it's such a bad thing." She spares him a glance as the minister leans in to murmur some senseless thing into his companion's ear. She blushes, he's pleased. A man who likes to be in power, who cannot abide anyone else with it. Dull. "Or do you still think sentiment is 'a chemical defect found in the losing side'?"  
  
  
"Of course I do," he replies without a second thought. Sentiment is dangerous. It's something that the winners use against the losers, as Jim managed to use John and his friends against Sherlock. Had he known the Woman was alive, he knows that Jim would've used her, too.  
  
"Sentiment is dangerous, it puts everyone involved at risk," he says.  
  
  
She raises an eyebrow at that, and simply looks at him. There's absolutely no need to say anything, because she is here and he is here and the aliases, the accents, had been discarded like so much useless clothing on the way into the opera house.  
  
"So why _are_ you interested in the minister, Mr. Holmes?" she says instead, her voice still pitched low. "Or is it just our mutual acquaintance that makes him interesting?"  
  
  
"His acquaintance with one of our mutual acquaintances," he says. "One who, sadly, has decided to no longer be part of our lives."  
  
He knows with little doubt that this will be enough to tell her who he is referring to.  
  
  
A chuckle at that. She, personally, only felt a fierce satisfaction at the idea of Jim Moriarty's death. He had been useful, yes, a source of information on how to turn her collection into something more interesting, but _he_ had preferred threats and thugs to playing the game. And Irene Adler had very little use for men who lorded their influence with threats and terror cells.  
  
"Ah, business still." And because she cannot resist poking at him, tugging at the little things that discomfited him, she continues, "You should try mixing business with pleasure sometime."  
  
  
"That is your field, not mine," he says. All the same, his gaze drifts, just for a second, away from the minister and to the Woman's neck again, to the line in her dress. She doesn't need to pull his eyes away forcibly, they simply _go_.  
  
He wants---he has no idea what he wants. But he wants the situation with the minister to be over so he can _focus_.  
  
"You could work with me," he suggests. "That would be the epitome of mixing business and pleasure, I think."  
  
  
His suggestion surprises her. Surprises her in a way that leaves her speechless for seconds too long, in a way that she had no doubt he would pick up on, whether or not he sees the root cause.  
  
Because it _is_ tempting. She'd not realized how much she missed being the late Irene Adler until she'd encountered a fellow ghost haunting the city, and the idea of something interesting, of this game going on for more than one night is almost intoxicating in its appeal.  
  
Which made it dangerous.  
  
"I thought you didn't approve of my methods," is all she manages to think of to say.  
  
  
"When would I ever say that?" he asks, raising an eyebrow at her seconds-long silence. It means something, and the wheels in his mind begin to spin at _what_ it means.  
  
"Your methods are _effective_."  
  
  
"Because I 'cater to the whims of the pathetic and take my clothes off to make an impression,' I believe were your exact words," she answers. The fact that she's letting slip that she remembers the exact exchange is inconsequential.  
  
It's deliberate misinterpretation and it gives her a moment to push the temptation aside and think, to keep her mind on the game, because to slip was to give in and to give in was to lose in this game that they never seem to stop playing.  
  
A smile tugs at her lips with the return of equilibrium. "Or was that more effective than you let on?"  
  
  
"You know the direct approach," he says. "Normally, it's something I avoid. It can, however, be very effective."  
  
He glances back at the minister, and then gives up on that for the moment. He's enjoying himself far too much.  
  
"It is the difference between what we have here, and---" he lowers his hand to her thigh, tracing his thumb upwards carefully. "---this."  
  
  
At some point the game had changed, and Irene wasn't certain exactly when that point had been, when he'd started playing by her rules, using her own ploys. But it added something to the game, a level of intimacy that had before been strictly cerebral, and now was now both mental and physical. Made it at once more dangerous and more appealing.  
  
She'd lost once, she had to keep reminding herself, but this was far too enjoyable, far too much fun to keep away from.  
  
Her smile grows at the touch of his thumb against skin and silk, and there is a hint of breathlessness in her voice. No doubt her eyes are dilated and no doubt he'll see it as some sort of victory. But chemistry works both ways, and she watches his gaze flicker away, then back again.  
  
"A fine line, Mr. Holmes. Are you certain mixing business and pleasure wouldn't blur the distinction beyond what even you can see?"  
  
  
When he looks to her eyes, his own are dark and dilated as well, the blue of his irises just slight rings around the dark of his pupils. They are constantly defeating each other, neither without a clear advantage.  
  
"I thought you wanted me to mix the two," he says. "Because I can see the distinction so long as you can."  
  
This is, in fact, a lie. He knows that things will become foggy. He knows this. But if he can lie well enough, perhaps he can make himself believe it.  
  
His thumb travels upward, right to the top of the slit in her dress, where he traces a small circle across her warm skin.  
  
  
She laughs quietly and leans in close. There had been scant space between them before, but even that meager distance disappears. Some part of her mind is hyper aware of the touch of his finger against exposed skin, but this _is_ the part of the game she knows better.  
  
Her voice is a bare breath against his ear, her lips barely brushing his cheek as she speaks. "I also wanted you to have dinner with me."  
  
She's close enough that she feels something unnatural press against her hip. A pistol? She isn't certain just yet and to _be_ certain might give away the game. "Or are you suddenly in the business of giving me what I want?"  
  
  
While Sherlock is one of the most observant men in the world, he fails to notice her pressing against the pistol, far too focused on the feel of her skin against his fingertips and the way her breath touches his cheek. She's _diverting_ , and distracting, and right now none of that seems negative.  
  
"I'm not hungry," he says, because that is the standard response. "And if I gave you what you want, that would be the _opposite_ of what you want. Quite a conundrum, that."  
  
  
And while most of the time he could be frustrating, Sherlock Holmes was also undeniably intriguing, the only person who has ever bested her, who was predictable in unpredictable ways that kept her always wanting to tease out more, to figure out just what was inside that extraordinary mind.  
  
It was a challenge, heady and intoxicating, though she would never admit it, especially not to him. Though sometimes she suspected he knew.  
  
The opera had no doubt started, and no doubt the foreign diva should care, but Irene had left that alias behind at some point. In the car, perhaps, or even before she'd left the hotel with blood red lips.  
  
"Hm, so you make the offer because it's not what I want?" she murmurs, her voice so quiet that a stray note from the orchestra would threaten to drown her out. "Then what happens if I agree to work with you, Mr. Holmes?"  
  
  
"I make the offer, Miss Adler, because two great minds are far more effective than just one," he replies. No matter how low their voices, the orchestra will be but a distant buzz in his ear in comparison to the Woman's voice.  
  
"And I imagine you might welcome the challenge. To _misbehave_."  
  
  
A thrill of electric anticipation and liquid warmth shoots down her spine at his words, not simply because of the answer or the invitation, but because she _knows_ it's true, that it would be an incredible challenge and there would be far greater opportunities than in this sleepy little tourist town, in any little careful town where she could rebuild what she had lost.  
  
Her lips curve into a slow, almost predatory smile at the thought, and a velvet purr slides into her voice.  
  
"Very tempting."  
  
  
"I don't think I remember Irene Adler ever giving up on the chance to give _in_ to temptation," he says. And no matter the disguises they wear, they will always be Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes. He can see that, now. No matter the distance from his old life, she can pull him back in. Or perhaps he pulls her. It's impossible to tell.  
  
He likes the way her lips curl, that slice of red across her pale skin, like the flash of a murder weapon in the moonlight. She's as intoxicating as a crime scene.  
  
  
Or they pull each other back because they are alike in a world that is far too ordinary. It was something she hadn't realized before, while making her way through the world misbehaving. That had been easy, and the challenges short lived through the endless cycle of affairs, revelations, and divorces.  
  
That there could be a game where she was matched, where the possibility of losing, of _actually_ losing, was real. And to find it again... Well, it was almost enough to make her think there might be such a thing as fate.  
  
"Am I really so predictable, Mr. Sherlock Holmes?" she asks. And despite the velvet purr and the breathlessness, there is still steel beneath it all, the unwavering will of the dominatrix who brought a nation to its knees. "To yield to every temptation that comes my way?"  
  
  
"Oh, not every temptation," he says. "That would be dull and predictable. No, you're very particular about what temptations are worth your time."  
  
He remembers when he thought he wasn't part of that, when she almost had him convinced that she didn't want him. But that telltale pulse, those dilated eyes--much like the ones she has now---they told a very different story than her murderous lips.  
  
He is presently tempted by her. By those lips, and wondering what they might feel like if he leaned forward to kiss her. Would they have the bite of a knife? Or would it be like the Woman herself, hard on the outside, but warm and delicate layers beneath?  
  
  
Her smile deepens with pleasure without ever losing that razor blade's edge. There is already no physical space between them, and the opera house and its performance long past being anything of even remote interest.  
  
She watches him. She always does, because he is the only person she's met who is interesting enough to watch, the only person against whom gambles can be won or lost by the twitch of a muscle. She watches and she can almost _see_ temptation take hold in the way his gaze lingers, in the warmth of the body against hers.  
  
It's more than the promise of misbehavior, of challenge. It's the temptation of being Irene Adler again, of being able to be utterly herself, not through the skewed self-portrait of disguise. It's the temptation of being Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes and seeing whether the world will burn before them or bend the knee.  
  
And he knows it. Knows that there is no way on earth she can say no to it. Not after everything. Her lips are very close to him, to call it a hairsbreadth would be generous.  
  
"And what temptations would you yield to, if I gave in to this?"  
  
  
"It depends," he says. "On your demands."  
  
That is significantly more seductive than he meant it, he thinks. Or is it? Perhaps it's exactly as seductive as he meant it.  
  
  
She wonders idly if he can count her heartbeats just from watching. It feels like he should be able to. Some little part of her marvels at what it takes to get them to this point, of there being nothing left of either of their worlds and their identities but themselves.  
  
And she thrills to be caught up in it.  
  
"Make a deduction."  
  
  
"Dinner."  
  
It's obvious, of course. She always asks for dinner. He knows it's not just food---it's taken him a while to work that out, but it makes sense now. But there's more. She wouldn't be that easy, she never is.  
  
"What else?" He lets his lips ghost against hers as he speaks, but doesn't move forward, doesn't dare break the cocoon of whatever they have holding them this close and yet this far. "Hmm."  
  
  
She laughs, low and nearly soundless, the motion covering up the shiver she suppresses and at the same time letting her lips brush against his in that same light barely there touch.  
  
"Dinner would be a start," she agrees. They are at once too close and too far apart, balanced but it is an equilibrium that will not hold. Something had to give, had to yield. She wants it to be him, because that is what she does, makes others yield, but he isn't one of _them_ , the clients, the pieces. And that makes things far more complicated. Far more interesting.  
  
"What if I say I've already told you the rest?"  
  
  
He doesn't want to be the one to move forward, to give in. No matter how spectacular the consequences of moving in might be, there would be nothing more exquisite than their battle. Her words, both challenging and frustrating, shoot arousal down his spine. _This_ is the dangerous diversion, _this_ is what creates the sentiment found in the losing side.  
  
"I'd say we have plenty of time for me to deduce the rest," he says. "I haven't got a gun to my head, after all."  
  
  
She somehow manages to wear the anticipation and tension like a second skin, comfortable and relaxed, even though she feels it keenly.  
  
"Would you? I always suspected the added pressure helped."  
  
  
"I can perform without pressure," he assures her.  
  
  
She wants nothing more than to yield, but there is too much pride in her to yield so easily.  
  
"Prove it."  
  
  
"Is that a deal, then?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. "Work together? Share the spoils?"  
  
  
"Hmm..." She lets the syllable roll over her tongue and still moves no closer. But on the other hand she moves no further away as she murmurs, "That depends on you, Mr. Sherlock Holmes."  
  
  
Depends on him. Depends on him to state that he's willing, that he's going to let down his guard enough to let her in, give her what she wants in return. He's no fool---he knows this is what she needs, too. They need the challenge. While she's not exactly like him, she's close enough that he _understands_ her. They are sharks---if they stop swimming, they truly will die.  
  
He spares one glance away from her, over her shoulder. The fact that he is the first to look away is consent, in his mind. He sees the stepdaughter---pretty enough, red hair, mid-twenties---stand to head to the lavatory.  
  
"Distract her for ten minutes," he says. "Then meet me in the coat room."  
  
  
It's like a sudden plunge into cold water, the shift in direction (though it is really simply a divergence, if she thought about it), but despite the betrayals of chemistry, her mind is still sharp and her eyes take in the stepdaughter rising. The way the young woman avoids the eyes of the women around her tells Irene more than anything and a smile plays on her lips as the pieces of the puzzle fall into place.  
  
The pistol. The minister. The stepdaughter turned mistress. Not enough pieces to reveal the entire picture, but enough to be intriguing. To make her want to know how this particular detective story ended.  
  
She rises from her seat, her fingers tracing along his jacket's lapel as she does so, pale skin against dark fabric.  
  
"I might take her for twenty five."  
  
  
He has some idea what she might do. Seduce the woman? Pin her against the wall? Intimidate her? All of the ideas swell in his mind, each just as likely as the last and they all make his blood warm. There's something very---very _base_ and _dirty_ about the thought of the Woman using her many, many abilities on the unsuspecting woman, and that quickens Sherlock's pulse.  
  
Oh, she's a bad, bad woman. It's _spectacular_.  
  
"I can be patient," he informs her. The pistol is heavy in his pocket, and the silencer is in his coat.  
  
  
Intimidation is too coarse, too easy. Seduction has its appeal, especially with the way her pulse is racing. She isn't certain yet which will happen, but her smile is sharp and sinful as she slips out of the private box.  
  
"Then I'll make you wait."


	4. Intermission (Rated E)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A night at the opera for most people do not include intrigue and deduction, but then Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes are not most people. Theirs is a fuse lit in a house in Belgravia, and that has continued to burn past their respective deaths, and this is a reckoning long in coming.

Thirty-two minutes. And the minister's mistress is propped up in a washroom stall, very dazed and potentially without much memory of what happened in the last twenty seven minutes.  
  
Irene, on the other hand, makes her way unerringly to the coatroom, tucking a lock of hair that had escaped her updo behind her ear. Her lipstick is fresh, and deep satisfaction lurks in her eyes.  
  
"Good hunting, I expect?"  
  
  
Sherlock isn't a casual assassin. He's the sort that does it because there's no other way. He has to remove Moriarty's web, and he has to do it carefully. As it is, the minister's ties to Moriarty are deep, and there's been very little room for intimidation or seduction of his own (though the latter was very, very unlikely considering Sherlock's lack of interest and the minister's proclivities with his stepdaughter). All the same, he's quiet enough and there's enough time with the Woman's distractions to step behind the minister and put a bullet in his chest just as the soprano hits a high note. He doesn't even drop his cigar.  
  
Sherlock tucks the minister's phone into his pocket and heads for the coat room, unscrewing the silencer and slipping it back into his pocket as he gets there.  
  
The Woman isn't far behind, her lipstick perfectly applied, her hair perfectly in place, but with a distinctly foreign scent to her that she didn't have when they parted.  
  
"And you," he says, stepping up beside her to shut the door and turn the lock. He doesn't step away once the door is sealed, just says in her space, drinking in everything he can deduce about her from the last half hour. The way she walks, the way her eyes shine---everything.  


The faint scent of gunpowder gives him away, and she's half-turned towards the door again when he speaks. She doesn't step out of his space either, instead just meeting his eyes. The tension of the box had ebbed somewhat, but now that she's faced with him again, close and forever intriguing, she can feel the fascination, the tension start to grow in the pit of her stomach.  
  
"I wouldn't bother otherwise." She glances at his pocket. "Not going to blame it on the girl? She won't remember a thing."  
  
  
"Of course not," he says. "I'm not one for sending the innocent to jail."  
  
Or the guilty, on occasion. While he knew that the Woman would've been safer if Mycroft had locked her up, part of him would always be grateful he hadn't, that Sherlock was able to help her roam free, making the world just that much more interesting.  
  
He lifts a hand up, tracing a forefinger across her jaw, wondering if he could taste the stepdaughter's mouth there if he traced his own.  
  
"They'll clear out the opera hall in less than an hour, we can make our way out then."  
  
  
Heightened sensation, ebbing since she left that posh young thing but not fast enough. The touch of his finger along the curve of her jawline is proof enough of that, and Irene draws a deep involuntary breath at it.  
  
"Better to have a reason for being in the coatroom in the first place," she murmurs. "Let them see what they expect instead of ghosts.”  
  
  
"And what would they expect, Miss Adler?"  
  
The way she breathes in brings back that bubbling sensation in his veins, the way that the blood seems to move through him more hotly. He wants. He wants. He never wants, his body is just _transport_ for his brain. He's never---but---  
  
"You should inform me, before I start to get creative."  
  
  
Her fingers run along the lapel of his jacket, tracing the same path as they had taken when she had left to divert the stepdaughter's attention. Her voice is low as she muses, "Locked door. A man and a woman with previous history who aren't where they should be. A pistol in his trousers. Sounds like either scandal or murder, Mr. Holmes."  
  
She seems to drift into whatever space is left between them, leaving again precisely the same amount of space that had been there back in their seats. Which was to say far too much and not at all. "But consider me intrigued about your ability to be creative."  
  
  
He hears a high-pitched scream coming from somewhere nearby, and he's certain that means the minister has been found. Right on time. He takes a step forward, and another, moving the Woman with him so that they're against some of the coats.  
  
"I think we both know I know how to divert," he says.  
  
  
Some matron's mink coat, far too warm for this climate, brushes against her arm as they move and Irene looks up at him, her eyes full of challenge and smoldering amusement. "Intellectually, I have no doubt," she answers, her body brushing up against his. "In practice, I have my doubts."  
  
  
"It would have to be more of an experiment," he says. "And I do enjoy experiments where I get to test my creativity."  
  
Such as indulging in that desire to taste her jaw, which he leans down and carefully presses his mouth against, tasting it on his tongue. She's sweet and just a little bitter and it's a brilliant combination. If he tastes enough of her, would he taste sex and blood beneath it all? Would she taste these last few months of murder and chaos on him?  
  
  
It doesn't surprise her that he's better at this than the young woman had been. She'd been a distraction, after all, something to pass the time. _He_ had been the real focus, the game that fascinated and made things so much more interesting than they would be otherwise.  
  
And tension coils again, warm and relentless in the pit of her stomach, at the base of her spine, as her fingers slide into his hair, long nails running against his scalp before tightening, tangling in the unfamiliar ginger curls.  
  
It's more than lips against skin, more than fingers and hair. It's every careful word and sidelong glance, every calculated barb and innuendo, the entirety of their constant orbit, the chess game they played, all of it writ small. And even though this field is hers from long familiarity, Irene Adler knows there is still the chance of losing.  
  
And that makes it all the more interesting.  
  
"Experiment as you like," she answers as she pulls him to her, eyes dark and dilated and that same sharp red smile on her lips, "Just remember I don't impress easily, Mr. Holmes."  
  
  
"Neither do I."  
  
She had stunned him when she appeared nude in front of him that first day, but her mind and her wit were what drew him in. Without her intelligence, he'd have never been impressed by her. If there was a way to strictly make love to her mind, he'd have probably removed any semblance of virginity he has by now. As it is, there's the _body_ to consider, and the messiness of sexuality.  
  
And the fact that right now, he doesn't care about messiness, he doesn't care about what sexuality might do to them, his blood is boiling and he can taste her skin on his tongue and he's willing to move this dance forward if she'll move with him.  
  
He moves his lips from her neck and leans in, just brushing her mouth with his.  
  
  
She's surprised that they get to this point. Or, she would be if slow burning heat wasn't coiling its way up from the base of her spine and diffusing under her skin. If her heartbeat wasn't racing and she couldn't feel his breath warm and quick against her skin. But all of those things are happening and for once it doesn't feel like losing to give in.  
  
It's the game still, even if the rules have changed. _I would have you on this desk until you begged for mercy twice._ Her own words echo in her mind. They had been prophetic, if premature.  
  
But all that is far less interesting than the light brush of his mouth against hers, a light touch that is electric and frustrating all at once for its brevity. Irene arches against him, all steel beneath soft curves and warm silk, as she kisses him again, abandoning the careful light teasing touches of earlier for demanding heat and rough physicality.  
  
It isn't losing to give in, as her hand clutches at his arm, long nails digging into the fabric. It's just another way of trying to win.  
  
  
It's losing because it _is_ giving in, and no matter how much control he appears to have, pushing her up against the coats in this small closet, she is the one in charge and he knows it. Although he won't admit it, he likes it that way, likes knowing she's _allowing_ this. No other man or woman in the world could make him want to give up and lose.  
  
Her rough kiss is met with the same sort of demanding action from Sherlock---he's inexperienced, but he knows he wants this, whatever it's becoming. The arousal she's brushing up against is more than enough to exemplify the sexuality of the situation, as is the heat of the Woman. He gently bites down on her lower lip as they kiss.  
  
A little pain for the pleasure.  
  
  
A laugh fades into a purr of approval at the light bite at her lip and Irene slides the hand that had been tangled tight in his hair down to Sherlock's neck, to the narrow strip of bare skin between hairline and shirt collar. Her nails bite into skin as she deepens the kiss, pleasure and pain and demand all rolled up in one.  
  
The hand that had been at his arm slides down, running along the lapel of his jacket. There's desire in her touch, in wanting to feel more beneath her hand than fine cloth, but for the moment she's content to tease, to touch with cool fingers and sharp nails, to run fingers along phantom trails with the promise of the same with nothing between them as her leg brushes against him again, the touch all silk and skin.  
  
  
He lets out a noise against her mouth at the feeling of her nails against his skin. That bite, vicious and delicious at the same time, coupled with her body against him is just equivalent to sensory overload. He's used to taking in everything at once, and now is no exception, but it does lead to just _too_ much.  
  
He can smell the Woman's hair and her perfume, and smell the sex of the stepdaughter along with the musk of the mink coat and the perfume of _that_ woman as well as the mustiness of the room---and that's just his nose. Everything else is being drawn in, but it's her cool fingers that keep him anchored to this place, to right now.  
  
The handle to the coat room is tried. Sherlock ignores it.  
  
  
The noise at the door reminds Irene momentarily of where they are and how long Sherlock had estimated they had before the opera house had to be cleared out. But that particular detail seems superfluous as the gasp against her mouth draws her back out of the opera house, out of the assassination of the minister, the tryst with the posh inexperienced little thing. Noise and detail, window dressing and setting, things that were utterly inconsequential to what was happening here, in this little bubble of intimacy long overdue.  
  
She mentally curses the evening gown, its tight fit preventing her from doing far more interesting things to distract them both. She'll settle for pushing back against him, her hand underneath his jacket, as the jiggle at the coat room handle becomes a bang on the door.  
  
  
He moves his hands downwards again, resting one on her hip and the other back to her thigh, to the warmth of her skin. He can feel the softness there and tries to determine lotions or oils, but nothing is coming to mind. He can read so much, but she hides so much as well.  
  
He pulls back his face just enough to look down at her, so close to him. There's so much he wants to explore, but very little time to do it in.  
  
"You promised to make me beg," he says, his voice low. "Tell me how."  
  
  
The feel of his hands against her silk covered hip, against the bare skin of her thigh. Given their careful, intricate dance around each other, those two things alone are almost enough to count as begging, they are so utterly out of the ordinary.  
  
Almost.  
  
But his demand makes up for it. It's the game again, words and will and touch and skill, all balanced on the head of a pin, all ready to come crashing down. That slow burning heat that's been coiled at the base of her spine is slowly turning to molten fire, but her mind knows this dance, and knows that it will take far more than the physical to make this worthwhile.  
  
She looks him squarely in the eye as she presses the rest of her body against his, curves against lean muscle, soft bare thigh against trouser front. Utterly deliberate, daring him to think on every inch of contact, of every nerve against every bit of exposed skin. The hand that had made its way beneath his jacket slides up his back, the path of each fingernail distinct through the layers of cloth.  
  
Her voice is low and breathless, her eyes dark and dilated, but her words are clear. "I already have."  
  
  
Her fingers against his skin, the way her nails scrape against his nerves, it's enough to make him shudder at the contact. She knows what people like, and somehow she's burrowed herself under his skin and worked out what _he_ likes, even when he was never quite certain himself.  
  
And she has made him beg. Right now, if she demanded it, the Woman could make him beg her to have her. That's how well she knows him.  
  
He pulls back and slides down to his knees in front of her, moving his mouth to her thigh, pressing his lips against her skin.  
  
"Perhaps I should return the favor."

 

If someone had told her that morning when she left her hotel that before the end of the night she would have Sherlock Holmes on his knees in front of her in the opera house coatroom, Irene would have laughed and called the hospital to pick up their escaped patient. But a few hours in the company of the presumed deceased had changed things. Brought them back to a lifetime ago and then forward again.  
  
But that is too abstract a thing to focus on when she can feel his lips like a brand against her thigh, the touch like fire against sensitive nerves. She shouldn't be surprised, that he knows exactly where those nerves are, experience or no, but it's the suggestion in his words that makes her laugh, though it sounds far more like anticipation and challenge and pleasure than amusement.  
  
"Do your worst, Mr. Holmes."  
  
  
Yes, that's exactly what he intends to do. If he could pull from her the same sense of bewilderment she consistently pulls from him, then he'll have done his absolute worst---or, well, best.  
  
He knows where nerves lie below the surface of the skin. Studied primarily for use in murders involving torture victims---in a way this is no different. Except, it's pain from a constant initiation of pleasure, rather than pleasure on his side because of her pain. Perhaps pleasure on his side because of her frustration. If he can get there.  
  
He traces his lips up her thigh, focusing carefully on the places where muscles meet, the nerve areas as he moves upwards, focusing on the inside of her thigh while his hand carefully moves the folds of her dress aside. Slowly upwards, carefully applying lips and then tongue, and then the slightest nip of teeth.  
  
  
Control was power, to have it, to wield it. And Irene Adler was a master of wielding that control like an iron whip. But as his lips linger against her skin, as his hand pushes aside the slick silk, that control begins to slip.  
  
There is no hiding the tension in her legs as muscles trembled from holding still, but she can try to keep her breathing steady. The feel of his tongue against her skin makes even that difficult, as her breath hitches and her pulse races. There is no hiding the way her eyes are dark and dilated, but she can stay archly silent as her hands steadily thread back into his hair, holding him right where he was.  
  
Her fingernails can trace unseen patterns against the back of his neck, numbers, letters, pictures, anything to distract him as he is distracting her, so that she can reassert control. But then she feels the nip of his teeth, unexpectedly, pleasurably sharp after the soft, deliberate touches, and even her silence falls with a sharp wordless gasp.  
  
  
He knows where nerves react. He knows what can feel a _lot_ but not a lot of what feels good. Especially on a woman, whose body makeup is easily identifiable in a book but not something he's familiar with. He moves the silk aside and presses his lips just to the side of her knickers.  
  
He looks up at her.  
  
"Show me," he says.  
  
  
Her fingers tighten in his hair at the kiss, and Irene exhales as she looks down at him, meeting his eye. The curl that she'd tucked back behind her ear had escaped again, a single lock out of place, and her eyes are dark, irises a mere ring of pale colour. Her skin is flushed, and it takes considerable effort not to arch into the touch so close to the scrap of lace she wore.  
  
Still, she manages to give him a challenging smile, her words provoking despite her obvious breathlessness. "Experiment and find out for yourself," she replies. "I always thought you'd look well on your knees, Mr. Holmes."  
  
  
"Mind you, this is hardly begging," he says.  
  
He can smell her sex. It's something he can identify, of course. An aroused woman, or even a man, gives off a definite smell that's very different from other scents. But he's never had it _affect_ him before. His body reacts to the scent, and he realizes he wants desperately to taste her, to do other things that have not yet been identified but he thinks will come along just at the right moment.  
  
He presses his mouth to the lace, just a gentle touch of lips to fabric, and then again, just enough to wet it. It's with a cautious and careful finger that he moves the lace aside and presses his mouth against her. Hardly begging, though he feels as though he's putting himself more in the running to beg than her.  
  
  
She could have argued the point, but that would require attention that at the moment she needs more to keep herself upright. She relinquishes one hand from her grip in his hair to grab the rod above her head on which the coats hang at the intimate kiss.  
  
But there's still more to the game, and even as she does give in and arches into that touch, still deft if not skilled, all she manages is a purr of approval.  
  
And her grip against the back of his neck loosens ever so slightly, drawing patterns against his skin.  
  
-.-- --- ..- / .-- .. .-.. .-.. .-.-.- / - .-- .. -.-. . .-.-.-  
  
  
He cautiously sweeps his tongue along the folds of her, uncertain where would be pleasurable and where would be too much. It's a difficult thing in normal circumstances, he imagines, but the Woman makes it especially difficult by being so very _her_ and holding back.  
  
She tastes sharp against his tongue, and while the taste is something he is completely unused to, it's far from unpleasant. He sucks just a little against her, still trying to judge where to focus his attentions.  
  
The back of his mind informs him that a code is being pressed into his skin. He doesn't catch it the first time around. Beg. Twice. He finds his lips curling up into a smile.  
  
Before he can reply, there is another bang at the door. He doesn't stop.  
  
  
It had never been about sex. Sex had been another way of pushing, of discomfiting him, of keeping him off balance and her in control in the game. And the game had been key, the power play of intellect, of secrets and revelation and unexpected hints of emotion. But sex had wormed its way into the game as more than just a means to an end, had linked itself to intellectual attraction, and that knowledge magnifies every touch of his lips and tongue against her sensitive flesh until she is all but shaking with the effort of holding back.  
  
 _Please._  
  
The word comes unbidden, springing to mind at the same moment as the bang on the door, and it is on the tip of her tongue almost before she even notices. But it is far too much like begging, and she had begged him once, a lifetime ago. She didn't intend to do it again.  
  
But liquid heat and unbearable tension continues to build, to coil in the pit of her stomach and curl through her body. And despite the pleasure that is threatening to send her over the edge, Irene wants to win even more.  
  
The single pleading word on the tip of her tongue becomes a wordless moan of pleasure and frustration, filled with far more feeling than the breathless text alert she'd left on his phone, as she takes a deliberate step back away from him.  
  
Her body shudders with protest at the sudden lack of contact but it is a momentary loss as she leans down to kiss him again, to draw him up to her as she tastes herself on his tongue. As much as her body wants release, her mind and her will refuse to give in as her hands slide along his shoulders, his sides, his hips in her own exploration. She refuses to beg for him without him doing the same.  
  
The bang on the door fades to metallic jiggling. Looking for the right keys, perhaps. Irene expects it'll take a few minutes, maybe three, as her fingers ruck up the fine fabric of his shirt, seeking skin to touch and explore.  
  
  
Seventeen keys. Likely half of them aren't labeled, and he never has to lock the coat room so he's uncertain which is the right one. That gives them only a few moments. The sounds of sirens are in the near distance. They might as well be back in London for all Sherlock cares right now. Her hands are on his skin, long fingernails that have been recently repainted twice and hands that have been scrubbed and moisturized this evening---cool and confident. It's frustrating, of course. He wants her to beg for him. He wants to _win_ , but he's not certain he wants that as much as he wants her. The high of their intellectual battle, the high of the danger, it's all swirled together to be far more potent than anything he's ever injected into his veins.  
  
His hand goes down to the zip of his trousers. Every beat of his heart sends more blood southward, and he just wants this, wants her, and there's not much time. He bites gently on her lower lip.  
  
"I won't beg," he breathes, but it sounds almost like a plea. Please. He won't say that, never.  
  
  
Her lipstick is smudged, and a second curl is threatening to come loose from its pinnings. The now-dead minister's little mistress hadn't managed either, despite the fact that Irene had refreshed her lipstick. Little things that gave away just how far under her skin Sherlock Holmes had managed to get, and how much she wanted this despite the iron control.  
  
She smiles against his mouth, returning the bite at her lip with one of her own, sharper. Her fingers manage to pull the shirt up and away enough to run her hand along his skin, and as his fingers reach for the zipper, hers brush against the button of his waistband. With her dress already slid against her hips, she wraps one bare leg around his waist.  
  
"Neither will I."  
  
It's a truce, of sorts.  
  
  
She already has, though. The _please_ she uttered still sits with him, boiling under his skin and her leg is wrapped around him, and he can feel her warmth against him. He remembers the fireplace, feeling her pulse elevated beneath his fingertips and seeing her eyes dark as she looked at him, and his body felt like this then, too. A battle of wits, mind against mind, and he's never wanted a person like he wants the Woman right now.  
  
New place, new faces, and they're still Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. Death won't change that.  
  
He's inexperienced. Should he ask? Should he just move forward? They're close now, and the door is only moments from breaking this. Instead of waiting, he finds his voice seeks permission for him.  
  
" _Please._ "  
  
  
She doesn't laugh, not when everything is so close and there is so much to feel, to take in. But the single word makes her smile, spreads heat and pleasure through her limbs as nothing but pure submission can. Her fingers are quick and deft as she unbuttons his waistband and slips inside, cool fingers against fevered flesh.  
  
The metallic jingling from the other side of the door pauses, the lock is tried, and the jingling begins again. Wrong key.  
  
She runs the pads of her fingers along the length of him, tracing along nerves and veins, as she urges him closer, pressing her body, warm and willing against him as she does. Some part of her recalls that it has been a very long time since she'd been this close to anyone male, but most of her knows that this isn't just about flesh and pleasure, that this is about the game, the intellects behind the game.  
  
This is about Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes, and it had been a long time coming.  
  
Another jingle of keys, and it's as if her blood is boiling as she tugs farther aside the knickers he'd already pushed aside earlier. There's a quiet snap of string as she does, but that barely registers as more than a convenience as she draws him close.  
  
Her voice is breathless, and with more pleading need in it than she would have liked. " _Yes._ "  
  
  
Her touch to him is startling, and he almost jerks away in response. It's so _intimate_ , and the pleasure her touch provides is so _different_. But he doesn't. He doesn't, because he just begged without meaning to. He just begged, and that is something he promised himself he'd never do. She does that to him, she pushes him in directions he didn't expect to go and eventually he finds himself loving the destination.  
  
He pushes upwards and inside of her. She's warm, wet, and sends sensations through him that he's never experienced before. He presses his forehead against hers and takes in a sharp gasp that sounds partially like a swear and partially like he's calling out "Woman".  
  
  
That _would_ have made her laugh, if the sound of pounding blood hadn't been so loud in her ears, if the feel of him against already sensitive nerves didn't consume whatever was left of her control, her ability to _think_. Surely she should laugh, to know that, even now, to Sherlock Holmes she is still The Woman.  
  
Or maybe she would just be pleased. She might still be, after the fact, but for the moment all she can think of is the feel of his forehead against hers, the feel of him inside her, and the way her hand is clutching at his shoulder. Her breath comes quickly, and soft, pleased gasps escape her lips as she slides her free hand along his, guiding his hand to her hip. Every part of her seems to strain towards him, as if the simple physical intimacy is not enough, as if it were not simply the last barrier between them, mind and body.  
  
  
She is more than Irene Adler to Sherlock Holmes. She predominates the whole of her sex. She is everything that average women are not, she is everything that he might want. And right now, she possesses him---he's no fool, he'd never believe that this was some sort of a conquest in which he won the Woman. No, she has him completely right now, and as pleased noises escape her lips, quiet moans of the same escape his. He thrusts up into her, her guiding hand the knowledge he needs to move, to hold himself within her as they move.  
  
Another key is tried at the door. The whole of Scotland Yard could burst in right now, however, and he'd (at best) tell them to sod off until they were finished.  
  
  
It takes a few tries, initially, for them to sync, to fall into a rhythm. But when it does, Irene smiles and wraps her other leg around his waist, arching into his movements and leaning in to trace a line of kisses along his jaw. He tastes of salt, the faint, bitter bite of nicotine, and something she can't quite identify.  
  
Maybe it's fitting, that she gives in to his proposition of working together the same night he gives in to hers. They are far too alike, far too likely to push, far too determined to win, to get what either wants without concession.  
  
A tiny part of her mind hears the key being tried in the lock, but before Irene can think of what to do about that particular interruption, his movement against her brushes against particularly sensitized nerves and the pleased gasp becomes a moan as her entire body clenches around him.  
  
The key stills momentarily in the lock on the other side of the door.  
  
  
That, coupled with the lick across his jaw shoots pleasure down his body and he lets out another low moan. He moves with her in sharper strokes, his stamina not as adept as he imagines her former lovers must've been like. But he's a novice. She's the master.  
  
He hears the door open behind them, but that doesn't mean he needs to stop. The whole world can go hang itself for all he cares right now. He's very close to the edge, and---  
  
" _Excuse_ me," he hears the voice behind them.  
  
He all but growls in response. So much for time. Where did the minutes go?  
  
  
The minutes had ticked by in the touch of skin against skin, in gasps and rhythm and touch. Which is why at the sudden, nasal voice and all its clearly unspoken disapproval, Irene is momentarily stunned, caught without a thought except Sherlock's growl reverberating against her skin and her legs tightening around his waist.  
  
It takes her a second to find her voice, to slip the Carrington persona back on like some discarded coat. Her voice is breathless and wanting, but despite that the demanding American arrogance of the Carrington persona shows through.  
  
"Come back later."  
  
  
The Woman's arrogance and her flawless slip into her other persona maks Sherlock smile. He lowers a hand to her hip and pushes down slightly, to push himself deeper within her with very little movement needed.  
  
"I-I'm sorry, there's---there's been a murder---"  
  
"Then you have other things to worry about," Sherlock snaps, his French accent thick. "Give us a moment to tidy ourselves before the public sees."  
  
  
She gasps involuntarily as he pushes himself deeper inside her, and Irene smothers a smile as the hapless attendant (dull, vanilla, now trying desperately to hide a growing erection) stammers again.  
  
A stronger dismissal to the attendant is on her lips, but it is lost in another gasp as Sherlock moves against her, and Irene's grip on his shoulder tightens. The attendant's eyes widen again and he stumbles backwards, knocking over three coats as he does so. No doubt he would have managed it better if he just turned around.  
  
The accent slips away as she barely manages to murmur against his ear, "Not very sporting at all."  
  
  
"Handle it," he says. He thrusts again. He can hear the attendant stumble behind him and that makes him smile again. The attendant has a story for the future, something really weird that happened the night of the minister's murder. He presses his mouth against her ear just as he hears the door shut.  
  
"He'll be back in just a few minutes," he warns her. "We have to be quick."  
  
  
Her grip on his shoulder doesn't loosen as the door clicks shut behind them, though a shiver runs down her spine at the touch of his lips against her ear. Another gasp as he thrusts again, this one turning into a pleased chuckle at his words.  
  
She shifts against him, her entire body clenching around him at the intimate movement. Her lips trace their earlier path along his jaw as she murmurs, still breathless but challenging, "Well then, be quick about it."  
  
  
Oh, a challenge. He speeds up his thrusts, keeping one hand on her hip and bracing the other one against the wall behind the mink coat. He speeds up, and he could only feel the pleasure around him, coupled with the danger of their predicament, and how close they were to---  
  
Oh, god.  
  
He gasps against her hair as he feels his orgasm rising. He might've had a chance at stamina before, but the danger in this and the Woman's challenge have robbed him of any and all sense he might've had before.  
  
  
His grip tightens on her hip, tight enough to bruise, and Irene's breath hitches as he gasps into her hair. The feel of him taut and straining against her, the knowledge that this was a reckoning long in coming between them, the intensity of the game they had played all evening, all day every since she saw him in the streets, it was almost enough to send her over the edge.  
  
She clings to that knowledge as she feels him shudder against her. Because she's given in, and every fiber of her body is screaming for its own headlong rush into oblivion, but she still cannot help but want to turn even this into a power play.  
  
But even that control is slipping away.  
  
  
He can't--he can't---  
  
He doesn't want to give in, but his body betrays him, and he feels the tightness and pressure shoot over him like a bullet wound as he orgasms, crying out desperately against her as he thrusts and shudders one last time. He clings to her, but only for a moment. A moment of sentimentality, a moment of release.  
  
He pulls his head back to look down at her. Lipstick smudged, hair askew. She is---and he does not use this word lightly---incredible to look at.  
  
"I can understand why this can be a motive for murder."  
  
  
It's that moment of wordless sentimentality that sends her over the edge.  
  
Guesses, deductions, sly words, and slips. Those always existed between them, but it is that clinging touch as he shudders and stills that is proof that he is as irrevocably caught in her orbit as she is in his. With that unexpected touch her control shatters, and all the coiled tension and burning heat washes over her like a wave.  
  
She looks up at him, eyes heavy-lidded, and it takes three blinks for her to clear her mind enough to process his words.  
  
"If it were always that interesting, there'd be less murder in the world," she answers. The words are hers, but there is a distinct lack of something in her tone, the usual arch amusement, perhaps.  
  
  
He brushes her lips with his. There's time for more talk later. Right now, the sirens are suddenly very close, and he knows the attendant has finished having a wank and will be back to bring them out.  
  
"Dinner?" he offers.  
  
  
She unwraps her legs from around his waist carefully, and is mildly irritated and amused by the fact that her knees are less cooperative than she'd like.  
  
Still, she smiles and slips the ripped knickers off completely. She'll tuck them into some poor idiot's coat on the way out. "I never thought you'd ask, Mr. Holmes."  
  
  
He steps over to the door and pulls it open, just as he sees many of the opera guests filing out. The attendant awkwardly steps away from the door and gestures to the exit.  
  
"T-The police will be---"  
  
"Yes, _merci_ ," Sherlock says, offering an arm for the Woman as he starts towards the exit. Getting lost in a crowd. The best way to be safe.  
  
  
She brushes by a coat she recognizes. Not the minister but a prominent real estate developer in the area that, according to the rumours, enjoyed philandering as much as the minister, but with a wife far more astute. Astute enough to have signed a prenuptial agreement that any proof of cheating on his part would give her half of his holdings. She liked the woman.  
  
Irene slips the torn knickers into that coat's pocket with a hidden smile before taking his arm. She catches the attendant's eye and he blushes violently. As they slip into the crowd, she murmurs quietly, the American accent firmly back in place, "Didn't trust the police with him?"  
  
  
"I wouldn't trust my coat with him," Sherlock replies smoothly, looking over his shoulder and shooting the attendant a glare like a man interrupted would.  
  
The police were questioning people, and Sherlock saw the telltale flash of journalists. Oh, they could handle nosy attendants, and he even imagines they could handle police, but journalists are different. A stray photograph could ruin everything. He immediately turned his head and nodded to a small opening in the throng of people exiting.  
  
"Alleyway, quickly."


	5. Aftercare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leaving the opera house behind, the temporarily resurrected Mr. Holmes and Ms. Adler find themselves threatened by exposure from an unexpected source.

She gives the journalists a bare glance and nods. She of all people knows just how dangerous that one stray photograph could be, and as interesting as their current diversion was, she _liked_ not having to look over her shoulder at every turn. Her eyes move quickly over the slowly growing crowd, gauging their reaction, the attendants.  
  
She slips her hand from his arm and twine her fingers with his, tugging him along, a smoldering smile on her lips as she begins weaving their way towards the gap, making her way circuitously. "I expect our attendant's story's making the rounds," she said, swaying into him for a moment before pulling away again. "Best let the rest think we're taking care of unfinished business. The car can meet us."  
  
  
"Good," he agrees, returning her smoldering smile with a somewhat smug smile in return. He lets her tug him along, and when she sways into him, he presses a kiss to her forehead affectionately. That sort of affection is for other people, he thinks. They're about subtlety and careful clues hidden in plain sight. Other people need to hold and kiss in public in order to reaffirm themselves. Sherlock and the Woman separate for months and when they see each other again, it's as if nothing's changed.  
  
He gives her a gentle tug towards the alley.  
  
"Text the car."  
  
  
Nothing has changed, except that they're both dead to the world, with nothing of their old lives holding them back. And even then they are still exactly as they were.  
  
Well, almost.  
  
She gives him a sidelong glance at the seemingly careless, affectionate kiss and answers with an equally careless laugh, the sort of thing giddy blushing women might offer. Except, of course, she doesn't blush that easily, and the hand that isn't in his is already in her pocket.  
  
She hits send on the text as they approach the shadows of the alley, and she leans into him, pressing him against the brick wall, the gesture reminiscent of the way she'd arched against him in the confines of the coat closet. And another peek towards the opera house just in case their progress is watched.  
  
  
She pushes him against the wall and he wraps his arms around her. He leans in for a kiss---again, a gesture too simple, too carelessly affectionate for them. All the same, he _does_ like kissing the Woman, if only because it's part of the slow build to whatever they've begun here.  
  
He calculates in his mind exactly how long it will take for the car to be at the other end of the alley. Two minutes? Three? Plenty of time for them to---  
  
A harsh voice barks at his ear in Croatian, and Sherlock breaks away from the Woman to see a small knife pointed in their direction from the shadows.  
  
  
The sharp exclamation in Croatian shatters the little bubble of fictitious normalcy, and Irene turns towards it, trying to make out the form behind the dull glint of the knife. Another bark, and a wave of the knife.  
  
"My Croatian's rusty," she murmurs beneath her breath. She can smell the faint stale scent of alcohol, but whether that's the alleyway or the man with the knife, it was hard to tell. "Is this a robbery or an attempt to extort state secrets?"  
  
  
"Robbery, I think," Sherlock says. His Croatian was recently worked on, but the man's speech is slurred, and he uses more colloquialisms than Sherlock properly knows. And, anyway, there's not enough time for it.  
  
He raises up his hands and immediately moves forward to slam his palm into the robber's nose, effectively breaking it. The robber swings blindly with the knife and Sherlock feels a brief shock of pain down his side.  
  
  
She isn't as fast as he is, no doubt from lack of practice. Low profiles were all well and good but they were atrocious on reflexes. She hears the crunch of bone and sees the blind swing, stepping out of the way to add a double-handed blow to the man's solar plexus along with the broken nose.  
  
He staggers back with a satisfying gasp for air as Irene keeps close to Sherlock. If their assailant managed to stand again, he was either stupider or more desperate than she expected, and she liked their odds better if she were within arm's reach of the pistol.   
  
"He'd have had better luck with one of the well-dressed idiots milling by the theatre," she remarks before turning to her companion, the adrenaline coursing its way through her veins.  
  
  
Sherlock reaches his hand down to his side. It comes back red with blood. It doesn't feel deep, but it's surprisingly bright and thick. He's about to comment on it when there's a sudden bright flash of light in their direction.  
  
He looks up, startled. A camera flash. The paparazzi with the camera makes a run down the street. Sherlock doesn't hesitate to run after him.  
  
  
The camera flash is blinding for a moment, and Irene curses when she realizes just what had happened. She bends and relieves the moaning Croatian of his knife, frowning at the damp blade edge, and follows at a marginally more sedate clip, texting additional instructions to the car's driver.  
  
Perhaps the driver might be able to cut off the paparazzo's escape route, but on the other hand, the photographer was clearly someone looking for a big break or scandal. Nobody photographed well-heeled society events for fun.  
  
  
Sherlock follows at a full pelt, though the man with the camera appears to be faster. He catches glimpses of important information---mud stain on shoes, well-worn back sole, longer-than-average hair, but a very expensive camera. Is that a train ticket in his back pocket? Looks like it. He thinks back to the maps he's studied of Montenegro, and it becomes very obvious around what part of town this man lives. Now all he has to do--  
  
He goes to turn down an alley, and Sherlock finds himself overly winded before he follows. He loses his turn and runs into the side of the wall. It makes an excellent place to stop. No, no, he can't stop. But his side hurts. He reaches down to his side and sees that it's bleeding a lot more than he expected.  
  
"Woman!" he calls back as his knees give out.  
  
  
She, on the other hand, had been approaching the problem from a different angle as she followed at a brisk clip, her heels clicking against the cobblestones. Limited interest in society photographs, which narrowed the potential publishers. Freelancer. Only freelancers would try to snap scandalous pictures quite so overtly. That narrowed down the number some more. And only one of the local papers were free enough of political and business ties to dare publish any scandalous photographs.  
  
The photographer is far out of her sight by now, and the fact that she doesn't hear any metallic crunches or dull thumps meant that the car hadn't caught up with the photographer either. Pity. She's nearly about to pass the alley by when she hears the call and turns.   
  
She watches as he stumbles against the wall, blood dark and wetly glistening against his hand, and curses again. She taps another message into the phone (the rental car driver no doubt now astonishingly irritated), then tucks it back into her bag. The Croatian's knife she keeps in hand.   
  
"You're far less appealing in this position when I'm not the one who put you in it," she says as she stoops to his level, reaching to pull back his tuxedo jacket. There seems to be a lot more blood there than there should be for a glancing blow. "Did you realize you were bleeding before or after you started running after the idiot like a madman?"  
  
  
"Before," he says, with an immensely irritated tone, as if his injury, or the severity of it, was somehow her fault for having mentioned it. He untucks his shirt and looks at his side. If John were here, he'd be able to tell Sherlock exactly how bad the injury was and apply a doctor's first aid. The Woman knows first aid, this he's certain of, but how much is really a mystery to him.  
  
"If you've told your driver to take me to any sort of hospital, that's a mistake," he says. "I just need to get back to my hotel."  
  
  
The look she gives him is pure, scathing irritation as she runs her fingers over the bleeding area. Shallow, no doubt the bleeding was exacerbated by the exertion. She's honestly relieved, though that doesn't show as she scoffs at his words.  
  
"Don't be melodramatic. I've given worse." She pauses and tilts her head, listening for the car. "I told the driver to pull up to the other end of the alley to wait, unless you like leaving trails of blood along the street. I have a first aid kit in my hotel room."  
  
  
"Good," he says. "He's going in the wrong direction for his home, so we've got at least a few hours to find where he lives and get the photographs back."  
  
He leans heavily against the wall and strains to get himself to his feet. A shallow wound, yes, but it's sore and painful, and the amount of blood is disconcerting.  
  
  
She pauses to remind herself where they are in relation to the city, and the direction in which the photographer had gone. "Expect he's gone to find a friend, or a bar to lose himself in. Good thing the magazine's office is already closed for the night."  
  
Rolling her eyes, Irene rose to her feet and offered him a hand up. "Don't tell me you can't stand the sight of your own blood, Mr. Holmes."  
  
  
"Plenty of online resources. One email to the wrong place, and I may have to let Mycroft in on my little excursion to Montenegro. And considering it is his fault I ended up having to go under the radar---"  
  
He stopped, still pressing his hand to the wound, the injury forgotten. Radar. Radar.  
  
"He found us too quickly. Almost as if he knew where to look."  
  
  
She arches an eyebrow at his mention of the elder Holmes and files the bit of knowledge away for later, perhaps when there wasn't quite so much bleeding or flailing going on, and she begins walking towards where she'd instructed the car to meet them.  
  
"Of course he knew where to look. Expected that attendant sent him after us, thinking he could get proof of what he saw in the coat room." She's carefully dismissive, though his words do plant a seed of doubt in her mind. "Car's waiting."  
  
  
"No," he says, shaking his head. "We're not important enough for that. No matter what the attendant saw. If he'd called the photographer, we'd have seen him walking to the coat room. No, no, something else is---ow!"  
  
He leans back against the wall. Bruising? Something feels wrong.

"Where?"   
  
  
She stops, and her brows furrow as she turns back to him at the exclamation. Had she missed something? She had been truthful about the wound, she _had_ given worse to particularly interesting clients. Even in her heels she isn't quite tall enough to support his weight on her shoulders. So instead she moves to his other side, slipping an arm around his waist, and presses a firm hand against the shirt and the bleeding wound as she heads down the alley again, pulling him along with her.  
  
"This way. Unless you're having trouble walking and thinking at the same time."  
  
  
"I'm _fine_ ," he snaps, though he doesn't hesitate to lean against her as she puts her arm around him. He shouldn't trust her, he tells himself. Especially not when vulnerable like this. This is a bad idea.  
  
But he hurts. And she's helping. And---and---  
  
And he wants to trust her. Sentiment. It's something he's still getting used to.  
  
  
"Of course you are," she snipes back, adjusting her stride as he leans against her. Her hand continues exerting firm pressure against his side, which should slow the bleeding though it would be far more effective if they weren't moving. Muscles shifting, pulling at skin, keeping blood from clotting.   
  
She repeats to herself that it is a shallow wound and as they approach the end of the alley and she can see the car waiting, she hands him the Croatian's knife. It was surprisingly well-made, and had been balanced in her hand. "Tuck that into your pocket, will you? It won't fit in my bag and I'd prefer to driver didn't start getting ideas."  
  
  
He does so, tucking it into his pocket with the blade up to avoid accidentally stabbing his thigh.  
  
"Am I intoxicated?"  
  
After all, there are only so few people they can trust.

 

She nods at the driver, who was looking bored in the front seat. It's dark, if he isn't observant he might not notice the dark stain under Sherlock's jacket.   
  
"Intoxicated and being taken back to my hotel room for some nefarious purpose," she muses, "I like it."  
  
  
"Mmmm," he nods. "Better make it as convincing as possible, then."  
  
He leans forward and plants a drunken kiss on the side of her mouth as he pulls open the door for her. He grins dopily at her afterwards, clearly intending to be the gentleman and let her in first.  
  
  
A glance at the driver, who after his initial start had settled back into his seat, his hands loose on the steering wheel. Saw what he'd expected to see and looked no further, just like the opera house attendant.  
  
She laughs with giddy pleasure at the kiss and brushes against him as she climbs into the car, murmuring quietly as she does so, "I'm starting to think you enjoy doing that." As she enters, she tugs at his jacket to pull him in after her.  
  
  
"Don't jump to too many conclusions," he replies with a small smirk on the edge of his lips as he all but falls into the seat next to her. It's hard to pretend to be loose and carefree when his side feels hot and painfully tight, but he manages.  
  
The Woman is an excellent distraction. He presses a kiss to her jaw, letting his French accent come back, thick and a little slurred.  
  
"You don't want to have dinner?" he asks, aiming for drunkenly disappointed.  
  
  
Her attention is half on the act and half on the unspoken signals, the way he falls into the seat with his weight favouring his unwounded side. Still, she laughs again, more at the reversal in his words than at the touch of his lips against her jaw (though that _is_ pleasantly distracting).  
  
Even now it's the intent and the words behind the touches that amuse her, that _matter_ , because they are who they are and are both too much themselves to let that change.  
  
Her American accent is firmly back, teasing and laughing and mock irritated all at once as her fingers slide into his hair. "Dinner was what got you into this situation in the first place, remember?"  
  
An affectionate kiss to his temple, and she adds to the driver, "Back to the hotel, please."  
  
  
"No, we could go dancing," he says, grinning big and stupid at her. Stupidly, in a way he has never grinned without some sort of purpose behind it.  
  
She is intoxicating, though. The Woman. The way she seems to know, the way she follows his leads or leads him in her own way. The way she predominates the whole of her sex in his eyes. There will never be another woman like her. He genuinely believes the universe might end if there ever was.  
  
He nuzzles playfully against her shoulder.  
  
"Alissa," he whines. "Dancing."  
  
  
Another laugh. Another glance at the rearview mirror. The driver's gaze flickers over them as he pulls back onto the winding street, then back to the road. She wonders idly which one of them he envied more, in this state.  
  
Maybe both.  
  
She arches into that nuzzle, as her fingers trail lightly through his hair and down his neck. Calculated distraction masquerading as playful, amorous affection. She kisses him on the lips, as if the driver had been utterly forgotten. He'd attribute it to typical American arrogance. "I'm not saying no to dancing, am I?"  
  
  
"Yes you are," he says, as though the English connotation is lost on him. He pauses a moment and a big grin appears on his face as he pulls away from her kiss. " _Oh._ "  
  
He doesn't think that the driver has any suspicions. Nothing but an idle glance back, perhaps out of curiosity. Good. Alissa Carrington and her French journalist lover will be easily forgotten in the midst of everyone else terribly interesting he's probably driven around Kotor.  
  
  
It reminds her of the first time they'd met. The disguises, the veiled exchanges. A little part of her wonders what their current disguises say about them, what self-portraits they are painting of themselves now.   
  
Lovers? Too casual, too simplistic. Tangled in each other, yes but in ways far more interesting than the physical. Affectionate? At ease? No and no. But balanced. At an equilibrium. Of the same mind, for once. Maybe so.  
  
She smiles in response to his feigned sudden recognition and murmurs, "Dinner and dancing. Do you always know how to show a girl a good time, Mr. Stingenson?"  
  
Irene Adler had no doubt he would understand the meaning behind Alissa Carrington's words.  
  
 _Assassination and intellectual intrigue. You_ do _know how to have a good time, Mr. Holmes.  
  
  
_ He smiles again and reaches up a finger to brush it against her jaw. It's meant to be stupidly affectionate, as he imagines Stingenson would be when terribly intoxicated, but a little of the touch is Sherlock's, too. They're very different, she and he. And yet, they manage to find each other. They manage to confound each other, even as they work together.  
  
"Mmmm. Tomorrow we'll see the sights and dance a bit more," he says, in response.  
  
 _Do some stealing of photographs and priceless artifacts._  
  
Normal relationships must be so _boring_.  
  
  
"Mmm, maybe if you can keep up," she answers. And that promise is pure Irene Adler despite the Carrington woman's voice.   
  
The drive back to the hotel seems to take less time, and Irene is certain that the driver now finds them utterly dull. Any intrigue, any interest from their roundabout conversation on the way to the opera house is washed away by the more familiar exchange of the inebriated and debauched.  
  
The car rolls to a stop outside the hotel, and the driver steps out, studiously avoiding looking into the car, and opens the door.


	6. Between Death and Resurrection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An evening at the opera ends with a knife wound and a threat to the fiction of their mutual deaths. But in order to stay dead, Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler may have to live again, at least, for a little while.

It's for the best he's looking away, as Sherlock can't disguise the grimace as he moves to get out and stretches the injury to his side. He plasters on a grin as he gets himself completely out, and waits for the Woman in order to lean against her again.  
  
"You've been lovely, really," he says to the driver. "You know, if you're not too busy, we might want---"  
  
  
She follows him out quickly, barely out of arm's reach. No doubt the driver would think it was affection, the promise of an amorous liaison. When in fact it's so she can slip an arm around him again. It wouldn't do to have played the intoxicated couple for so long just to have blood or stumbling give lie to the game at the end.  
  
"--Nothing else tonight," she interrupts firmly. The driver looks at her, his eyes roving almost unconsciously. Over her rumpled dress, his mussed tuxedo. The swaying, the telltale sign of there being nothing underneath the dress to break the fluid line of her back and legs. The way the driver's eye then runs over Sherlock. Seeing the long fingers, the hastily rebuttoned trousers.  
  
Definitely jealous. Of both of them, probably. She knew she liked the driver.  
  
Her hand probes Sherlock's bloody side as she shoos the driver back into his car. The blood is tacky to the touch, and seems to be clinging to his side. That'll be troublesome if it's stuck to the wound.  
  
"Experience drinking or observing the inebriated?" she asks in a low voice, leading him towards her hotel.  
  
  
"A bit of both," he admits, taking in a pained breath. "I did go to university, after all."  
  
Granted, he was only invited to one party. That was hardly the point.  
  
He gives a dopey grin to everyone that might look in their direction, grateful again that he went with a black tuxedo rather than the white one he'd originally thought to purchase.  
  
"You adapt easily," he says. It's partially a compliment, but mostly just an observation.  
  
  
"Most people who do both don't remember it afterwards," she answers, amused. "Most of my friends didn't." University had been fun, and Irene had shown an aptitude for law, but it didn't take very long for it to become apparent to her that she could do as much manipulation of those in power for much more gain as a dominatrix.  
  
Her hand continues exerting pressure at his side and Irene waits until they're past the doorman holding open the door before she speaks again, "I've had a lot of practice."  
  
She's done nothing but adapt since Karachi, after all.  
  
  
"I can imagine," he replies. "And you've been dead a good deal longer than I have."  
  
And her death would be forever. His would be until he'd completed cutting down Moriarty's web. And then---well, then he'd go back to London. Oddly, the thought was significantly more appealing until tonight. Part of him thinks he will certainly miss---well, miss this, at least. The challenge.  
  
"Might need to ask room service to bring up a needle and thread," he warns. "For my---torn suit."  
  
  
She says nothing else about her 'death'. It reminds her far too much of how much she's missed being Irene Adler, how much she had not even realized it until today. Instead she keeps her mind on the lack of fresh blood against her hand, the elevator that has just vacated in the lobby that they can slip into without other patrons.  
  
A quiet laugh. "Hardly," she answers, catching the eye of the elevator attendant and having him hold the door. "I did say I've given worse. I've fixed worse without having to call for the maid."  
  
  
"I certainly hope you're right," he says. "Because I usually have a doctor on hand."  
  
Still, the Woman is more than capable. He's going to be a fussy patient, he always is, though John is always more tolerant than any other doctor might be. He's grateful for the empty lift, as he can drop the silly grin. A silent, stoic look replaces it. He won't cringe, not right now.  
  
"I've got a plan for getting the photographs back," he says. "But it's not going to leave us with a lot of time."  
  
  
She'll be far less tolerant of any petulant fussing than John Watson, and no doubt far less gentle. But she is here and John Watson is not. Irene watches as the elevator ticks slowly up to her floor and smiles at his words.  
  
"As long as it doesn't involve you leaving a blood trail," she answers. "I haven't met the recordkeeper here yet." The elevator slows and opens its door at the top floor, the hall sedate and quiet. "The photographer's apartment or the magazine office?"  
  
  
"His flat," Sherlock says. "Freelance. He's going to probably try to sell to any online distributor who will take him. The camera he has is expensive, so he takes his job seriously, but his clothes are old, so he doesn't have any consistent source of income."  
  
  
Her lips thin at that, and she pauses to remove the hotel room keycard from her purse. "Easier than the offices," she muses. "Flat won't have much security. Or very good locks if you're right."  
  
Her eyes glance over the doorframe of her hotel room, checking for the little signs of disruption. A seemingly forgotten room service menu still tucked between the door and the frame, a stray thread on the carpet. Little things that marked that the room had been untouched since she'd left it.  
  
Little habits that had become second nature since she went into hiding. Satisfied, she slips the keycard into the lock. "There'll be neighbors to contend with."  
  
  
"And him," Sherlock adds. "He won't give up the camera and its contents easily. Few people with that sort of information do."  
  
The last is said with a slight eyebrow raise in the Woman's direction. Of course, she had far more on that cameraphone than just pictures. That was hardly the point. He'd played fetch-and-carry before, he wasn't ecstatic to do it again.  
  
He steps inside once the door is open. Her hotel is significantly nicer than his, and she keeps things in a very precise manner that he immediately recognizes from her life as Irene Adler.  
  
  
She'd tried, for the first few weeks, to keep the rooms in which she lived as precisely unlike Irene Adler as possible. But that had been an exercise in futility, a disguise that never took because it was far too unlike herself to ever be comfortable.  
  
She catches his meaning and returns the look with a hint of an utterly unrepentant smile. "And those who lose that information only have themselves to blame?"  
  
Said lightly enough, but at the same time she steps away from him and turns towards the wardrobe set against the wall. The door swings shut behind them with a soft whisper, and she continues without turning her face back towards him."He can't object if he doesn't realize he's lost his information. And sit down, before your knees give out again."  
  
  
He wants to argue, but knows that he _will_ fall down if he doesn't sit. And so, down onto the edge of the bed he goes, and he carefully starts to peel away his jacket and shirt. The shirt is sticky with blood, but it doesn't feel as though it's too heavy. They just have to clean the wound, make certain that it's going to keep from swelling and---  
  
" _Aaah,_ " he lets out a little whimper of pain as he tries to pull the shirt off. It's not dried to the wound, not yet, but from the angle the cut went in, it's definitely unpleasant.  
  
"How do you plan on doing _that_?" he asks.  
  
  
The sound of the bedsprings settling tell her without having to look that he's done as she said as Irene opens the wardrobe. She thinks for a moment, then slips out of the evening gown without a thought and places it back on its hanger. She is as utterly self conscious as she had been the last time, wearing nothing but a pair of heels. This time she picks up a towel from the top of the wardrobe.  
  
"The same way I always did before, with a distraction," she answers with a hidden smile, approaching the bed and setting the towel beside him.  
  
  
And, as before, when he turns and looks at her, his eyes are drawn immediately to hers. She is a devious, intelligent woman. Her body has very little to do with it, though he does pay attention, notices the little marks on her hips where his fingers had dug in before.  
  
"He'll recognize you," he says. "The woman in the photograph. You'd have to go in disguise."  
  
  
She's changed since the last time this scene had played out, in subtly different ways. She's leaner than she had been, and the faintest trace of a scar lingers at the pale skin of her side. A reminder of Pakistan. Along with the marks of his fingers against her hips. She wonders idly if that makes her much easier for him to read.  
  
But the confidence, the eyes, and the mind that meet his are the same as they had been in her sitting room, amused and challenging, watching him and daring him to do the same. She doesn't stand before him long, instead continuing to the washroom as she speaks over her shoulder, "And you'll have to slip in the back and relieve him of the photographs."  
  
The sound of running water as she washes dried blood from her hands. The thud of a closing cabinet drawer. She returns with a first aid kit, bigger and more well-stocked than a hotel's standard issue. "Unless you're too injured for _that_ particular task."  
  
Her tone is almost sarcastic. Almost. It would have been, if there hadn't been the slightest hint of concern in the way her eyes run over the blood-stained shirt.  
  
  
"You're worth more to him in a photograph than as a sexual object," he counters, ignoring her comment about his injury. The longer he ignores its presence, the better off he'll be, he figures. An idiotic way to think, yes, but he figures it will keep him from focusing too much on the pain.  
  
"But what if you weren't there to seduce him? You were there to get his help?"

 

She rolls her eyes at his blatant ignoring of the question, which tells her more than a shrugged off answer. "Who said anything about seduction?" she asked, taking a seat on the bed behind him and setting the first aid kit by her side. "Maybe I'll make him think his flat is on fire."  
  
Her fingers are cool and precise as she runs them along his side, once more making sure her assumptions about the wound being shallow and simply exacerbated by activity had been correct. "Asking for help isn't a disguise I wear well, Mr. Holmes. You of all people know better than that."  
  
The words sound almost idle, distracted, as she picks up gauze and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.  
  
  
The wound is shallow, but it runs at an angle, causing more bleeding than expected, though his damage to internal organs is nonexistant. Some stitching and bandages and he'll be fine. He can almost hear John saying that. Strange, to have a pang of---what is that, homesickness? Idiotic, that.  
  
"But when you do wear it, you wear it _very_ well," he says. "He'd never turn his back on you. He wouldn't give up the story for sex, but he'd ignore it for a while to be a hero."  
  
And that was the difference between Sherlock and the other man. Sherlock didn't pretend he was a hero.  
  
  
A soft laugh and the distinctive sharp scent of disinfectant drift up at his answer, and for a moment Irene Adler says nothing as she splashes rubbing alcohol onto a pad of gauze.  
  
 _...you're damaged, delusional, and believe in a higher power. In your case, it's yourself._ She wonders idly if he realizes that playing the hero was just another aspect of that belief in a higher power she'd accused him of and he had not denied. She doubts it, even after she had managed to use it against him, coming to Baker Street seemingly hunted and with a puzzle to solve. Or when he'd proved it again, coming to Karachi.  
  
To admit to playing the hero would require admitting to sentiment. To admit to being above it all required nothing more than arrogance.  
  
"A man who makes his living exposing scandal and indiscretion _and_ likes to play the hero? Interesting guess." She doesn't warn him before pressing the alcohol soaked gauze to his side against the open wound.  
  
  
"I never guess," Sherlock says. "Back of the right calf, trousers rode up as he ran. Spiderman tattoo. Superhero, also a photographer. Not a terrible leap to think that he'd pick a childish dream over the reality of money. Being sentimental over a person, that's one thing. It's impossible to not be sentimental over childhood dreams."  
  
He sucks in a little air at the alcohol against the wound. It stings, but her touch is gentle. He knows he could do this himself, he's patched up far worse in far more dire circumstances. All the same, the gentle touch the Woman gives is strangely soothing.  
  
Inwardly, he lets out a huff of annoyance. Mocking people for their choices in sentimentality is a daily thing for him, but here he is, allowing the Woman to help him. Sentiment.  
  
  
Sight unseen, she looks up, curious, his comment. Her hands are steady as she draws the alcohol soaked gauze along the wound, and despite the soft touch there is no hesitance in it. She is, however, gratified that very little fresh blood seems to be seeping. That made things easier.  
  
"Is it? I'd have thought childhood dreams would be the worst of all, being nothing but naive hope and sentiment."  
  
  
"Worst of all, but very human. Especially for those who are barely able to pull themselves up with what little they have. Sometimes dreams are what we exploit when we need to."  
  
He looks at the Woman. He does not love her. Love is for children, a pipe dream so full of sentiment it is far beyond even his proper understanding. He admires her. He is attracted to her. This is enough.  
  
"We'll have you go in the morning. I'll get in through the window, he lives on the third floor."  
  
  
"We?"  
  
A single word, questioning and hinting at laughter all at once. She's already turning the loose plan over in her mind, testing the weight of it, building on a disguise, when she notices him turning to look at her, and the way the motion pulls at his side sends a drop of red blooming against the antiseptic soaked gauze.  
  
"Stop moving, you're making it worse on yourself."  
  
  
"I had assumed this would be a two-person job," he says. "Unless you want to back out. I can work something else out if need be."  
  
This man was, after all, no Irene Adler. Sherlock knows that with the right amount of disguise and planning, he can get past him and to the photographs before they appear anywhere. Or, at least, he's fairly certain he can.

 

She laughs at that, quiet, as she sets the gauze aside and contemplates the contents of the first aid kit. Third floor. Flexibility. It is too minor for anything drastic. A fact for which Irene is secretly grateful. Kate had been far better at stitching, whether it be an almost minor cut or a ripped seam.  
  
"I was talking about your mention of exploiting dreams. I never expected you to count yourself among the dreamers."  
  
  
He's quiet for a moment, as though introspective, but rather than saying anything--because saying anything would imply that he has to go into himself and admit something _to_ himself---he simply says:  
  
"Figure of speech."  
  
  
Another laugh, and the tip of her finger runs along the gash in his side, spreading a particularly effective topical ointment she'd gotten off a particularly chatty Canadian tourist a while back. She was fairly certain whatever was in it that made pain recede almost immediately was illegal in most of the European Union.  
  
A smile tugs at her lips. "Breakfast?"  
  
Dinner, after all, for all intents and purposes, was off the table. For the time being.  
  
  
"We'll skip the formal attire," he says with a nod. The pain is significantly better, and he reminds himself to steal whatever that ointment is before he leaves Kotor.  
  
He wonders if it would be wrong to ask her to come with him when he does. He decides that yes, it probably would be. He puts that to the back of his mind.  
  
"You should rest," he suggests.  
  
  
She, on the other hand, had studiously not thought about leaving Kotor for the last six, eight, hours. A dangerous omission, given how avenues of escape, of finding new places, new identities had become second nature since her death.  
  
"I'm not the one who has trouble standing," she answers, handing him a few butterfly closures. "Or do you expect me to take advantage of your unconscious state?"  
  
  
He takes the little strips and uses them to carefully pull the skin back together. It's easier now, the numbing, blinding pain that made him fall over before is all but dissipated. He can feel that ointment seeping through him, making his body warm. Yes, definitely something to steal for later.  
  
"I'm not tired," he says.  
  
  
She applies the same closures from the other end, ignoring the lock of hair that falls into her face, the same lock that had come loose in the coat closet and she had never repinned. She's done this enough that it's almost second nature.  
  
"And I keep late nights," she counters.  
  
  
"Then maybe we should skip the rest and get right into the burglary," he says. She's oblivious to the lock of hair---or is she? He can't read her, he can't tell. He does know that with her careful hand, this isn't new to her. She must know of clients that liked to be hurt badly enough to cut.  
  
"Did it ever bother you?" he asks, suddenly. "Tending to your clients. The aftercare that required you to appear sentimental."  
  
  
The unexpected question catches her by surprise, and her fingertips still for a moment against his side. The bed shifts as she settles back, eying her handiwork. Seemingly satisfied, she reaches up to tuck the escaped lock of hair behind her ear. It'll fall again, but she seems uncaring of that particular consequence.  
  
"Why do you think so many of them were so willing to share their secrets?" She knew what her clients liked, of course, the varied flavours of pain and humiliation and recreational scolding, but it all boils down to the same thing for so many of them. The secret to bringing them back, to manipulating them and getting the secrets she wanted from them.  
  
Pretending to care.  
  
"Why would being effective bother me?"  
  
  
"Disguises as portraits," he says. "A powerful, in-control woman is something to play at, to pull yourself out. But to allow that vulnerability, to allow them to _almost_ see you?"  
  
He looks down to his injury, where the Woman had been so careful, so gentle. He wonders how much of that is _her_ , and how much of it is because it's necessary.  
  
  
She smiles at his perception, and wonders if it is death that's cleared his vision or the evening. "People see what they want in the aftermath," she counters as she puts the first aid kit back together. "Just because they want to see sentiment in being careful with a necessary bandage doesn't mean there is sentiment there."  
  
Bandages, of course, were one thing. They were necessary. Things that soothed, that took away pain, were another altogether.  
  
  
His face goes cold. Imagined sentiment, of course. He's stopped playing for dominance with her, and that will be his downfall if he isn't careful. Mycroft may not be here, but he's suddenly in Sherlock's ear, reminding him that caring is not an advantage.  
  
The Woman is extraordinary. This is fact, as real as a cut or a bruise. Her importance to Sherlock is simply his own mind getting in the way.  
  
"I'll need another shirt," he says, just as suddenly. "And then we can leave.”  
  
  
There are some things about Sherlock Holmes that were obvious and easy to predict. Things she had used to her advantage before. And then there were things that were unpredictable, things that had surprised her, like his finding the key to her phone's password. Like his coming to Karachi.  
  
This was neither, but something _had_ shifted. Something unexpected, something she couldn't quite put her finger on, but that she could feel as surely as a breath of cold air against her skin.  
  
"Changed your mind about breakfast?" she asks, arching an eyebrow as she reaches for the phone by the bedside table. "There's always just the sheet. I liked that look."  
  
  
"If you don't need the rest, I won't keep you longer than necessary," he says. "After I leave here, I have business in Las Vegas that needs taking care of."  
  
A casino he's heard about. He imagines the Woman there, playing the gamblers and the dealers with equal grace. This infatuation with her will become disaster if he lets it. But she plays the game so well. She plays it perfectly.  
  
"And this---" It's the first he's mentioned it, but it's suddenly important he says this. "I can't."  
  
  
She may not be able to read Sherlock Holmes as easily as she read the ordinary people who surrounded them, but she is well versed enough in people, in the ebbs and flows of interpersonal interaction, to recognize the words, the sudden coolness.  
  
The softened tension, the almost imperceptible easing of their usual game of wills, of that drive to win, had gone almost before she'd noticed it had been there in the first place. And _why_ it had gone she wasn't yet certain.  
  
But even that didn't ring true. He'd mentioned Las Vegas. As a clue? Or a feint? "'This'?" she repeats, her eyes fixed on him, the telephone momentarily forgotten. There is something here she is missing, a piece of the puzzle that is just out of reach.  
  
"I think you'll have to narrow the field of options, Mr. Holmes."  
  
  
"This game," he says. "Sexuality, sentimentality. It worked well enough in the coat room, but it won't forever. It will become a distraction, and I do not _allow_ distractions in my life."  
  
Which means he can't bring her. She is the _ultimate_ distraction, and that is why she was so effective back in London. The Woman who beat him. He shan't forgive her for that. He would never want to. The way she makes his blood boil is---well, it's probably something that John Watson would consider _Not Good_ , but Sherlock can't possibly care.  
  
"Once we have the photographs back, I will disappear, and I'd advise you to forget you've seen me."  
  
  
His words fade into silence, and for a very long moment Irene Adler says absolutely nothing. There's a strange sense of déjà vu at play, almost like a dream, when everything is slightly out of sync. She almost expects him to hand her her cameraphone again, its password in stark black and white.  
  
Unbeknownst to her, her expression is similar to what it had been that night, brittle pride at war with something else. Then it had been desperation, fear of being exposed. This time it was brittle pride and unexpected vulnerability. Of having let him get quite so deeply under her skin.  
  
Again.  
  
"I guess death hasn't changed you as much as I'd thought, Mr. Holmes."  
  
  
"And what would you have expected, then?" he demands, getting to his feet. He feels suddenly, strangely vulnerable without his shirt. It's an unusual feeling. He has been all but naked in Buckingham Palace and not so much as batted an eyelid, but the Woman strips more than just clothing from him. She takes away personal armor.  
  
"You're not the sort of woman who would _want_ sentimentality, that's why you're here. No family, no little yellow house. No chit-chatting with the girls over lattes at the mall."  
  
  
Anger is easier, is _preferable_ to the bitter bile of vulnerability, and she draws it around herself like a second skin, cold and implacable. Drawing around herself the dominatrix's armour that she'd laid aside, the sharp words that she'd used to distance her feelings from him in a 747 full of corpses.  
  
"You can't have the insult both ways, Mr. Holmes." She is shaking as she rises to her feet, and it is easier to believe it is anger rather than anything else, that anger is what makes it hard to work the words past the lump in her throat.  
  
"Am I the sort of woman who doesn't want sentimentality or am I the sort of woman who loses the game because I let my heart rule my head?"  
  
  
He takes a step towards her. This is a bad idea. He can still smell her, standing there nude in front of her. He can smell her hair and her sex and it's unbelievably distracting. It makes his chest hurt. Psychosomatic. He ignores it.  
  
"You tell me," he hisses.  
  
  
Anger. Desire. They were cracks in the emotionless facade of Sherlock Holmes, cracks she normally thrills to find, to draw out and pick apart. But this time she isn't cool-headed enough for it. This time there is just a vicious thrill of knowing she isn't the only one feeling _something_.  
  
Her pulse is racing, and her eyes are bright as she matches his step forward with one of her own. "Why should I, when you'll just tell me?" she hisses back. "How many times have I been betrayed by chemistry tonight, Sherlock? Sixteen? Twenty-seven?"  
  
  
"Twenty-eight," he says, his voice somewhat rough despite his attempts to calm it. His eyes flit down to her mouth, and he remembers the way her lips looked, lipstick smeared and swollen from his bites. There is something very arousing in being wanted by someone else, in being _desired_. It's that thing that is distracting, he thinks. It's not just the desire for physical interaction, it's the desire to have _want_ returned with _want_.  
  
"Whatever you want, I can't give you," he says. "I can't stay dead."  
  
  
Someday she'll wonder if he does it on purpose, say things that are surprising, that she doesn't have an easy answer to. Things that somehow manage to cut to the heart of a matter she had not expected.  
  
Twenty-eight. She looks up at him, but if she sees more than she expected, she doesn't say, though a dawning realization is starting to work its way through her mind.  
  
"And I can't come back from the dead." A wry smile at that, as she steps away from him. The emotions are still there, but she's drawing back into herself, shutting away that which can't be changed and only allowing herself a passing melancholy to mourn it.  
  
"Look at us both."  
  
  
There are pictures to acquire and things to steal and people to be killed, and Sherlock Holmes feels as though his feet are glued to the floor of this hotel room. Caring is not an advantage. Because he cares. Right now, in this moment, he cares. And the Woman is stepping away, and she's right because _look at them both_ and---and---  
  
He manages to move his feet and steps towards her, wrapping one arm around her bare waist and pulling her towards him. The action hurts his side like he's been stabbed, but he ignores it.  
  
He kisses her, roughly, desperately. Because it doesn't occur to him to do anything else.  
  
  
Death _has_ changed him.  
  
And that ludicrous, utterly unhelpful thought is all she manages before she's kissing him back with all the anger and frustration of her earlier words. She hates that this feels _right_ , the knowledge that the only person who challenges her, who can even hope to be an equal, is also the only person who knows she is still alive, and the only way he would acknowledge that is if he has lost everything.  
  
It'll be all that much harder to wear the disguises again once he leaves for Las Vegas, once she heads to... Sydney, maybe. She kisses him back and wonders if he can taste it on her tongue, the desperation to have this last just a little longer, the fact that she is remembering every heartbeat of it because it _won't_ last and she will need something to remind her of what it was like to be Irene Adler when the consulting detective has returned to life and the Woman has long been buried under a mile of aliases.  
  
She steels herself and begins to pull away, murmuring against his lips, "Twenty-nine then."  
  
  
She moves to pull away, and he lowers his hand to catch her wrist, to move her hand. He presses her palm against his bandaged injury, putting just enough pressure against it that he feels the pain.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
The gratitude seems a complete change from his angry outburst a moment ago, but it's more than for just the bandaging. It's gratitude that it's not just a ploy, that she does _want_ this. Any doubts in his mind vanished at the way she returned his kiss.  
  
  
His grip is firm against her wrist, and his side is warm beneath her hand. She doesn't ask what he is thanking her for; they see too well for mysteries to last, and she is content to have the little ones left unspoken, unsolved.  
  
"Room service can bring up clothes now, but the idiot working the desk will get it wrong at least three times. The girl on call in the morning is sharper."  
  
And that's maybe the closest she'll ever get to asking him to stay.  
  
  
"It'll draw less attention to us, as well. Leaving in the morning, rather than in the middle of the night." This is, of course, logical, and he refuses to acknowledge that it could be an excuse to accept the silent request.  
  
He moves back to the bed, keeping his hand around her wrist. Less firm now, relaxing his grip ever so slightly. Pulling her by the weight of whether or not she wants to come.  
  
  
She's given in. No matter how loose his grip is on her wrist, Irene knows she's given in with the unspoken request, his equally silent acceptance. And, having been made vulnerable, her instinct is for protection, to draw back away from him and let inaction break the tenuous hold on the two of them.  
  
That would have been the cautious, correct thing to do. Nothing. And not let Sherlock Holmes and this nostalgia for the late Irene Adler worm its way any further under her skin. To leave for Australia tomorrow afternoon.  
  
It would have been easy, to let the weight of inaction decide for her. But she moves with him, almost unthinkingly, because a part of her wants connection more than safety, than protection, because the taste of her own desperation, his anger, and their collective sentiment is still on her lips.  
  
"He's a late riser. He won't know whether he's coming or going before noon, at the earliest." Not that she'd need help getting the photographer in that department.  
  
  
The backs of his legs find the bed, and he moves back onto it, hand still in hers, eyes on hers. It's difficult to say at what point he gave up trying to deny that he wanted this. At some point, he figures. Some recent point. How aggravating.  
  
"Rises on the left side," he agrees with a slight nod. "He'll be more on edge. Less rested when he does get up. Afraid of what he's found."  
  
  
There are a lot of things she could focus on. The way the hotel's lamplight plays over the wallpaper. The sound of the bed springs dipping beneath his weight. The hotel's air conditioning system stirring a phantom breeze across her bare skin. But what she focuses on is the warmth of his hand in hers. The way she will not, _can_ not look away. The subtle dilation. The ever-so-slighltly elevated skin temperature. She expects it's mutual.  
  
She tries to ignore that despite the similarity of the situation, this is very different from their first meeting. That even she is out of her element here, standing in nothing at the edge of a hotel bed with Sherlock Holmes. The dominatrix's clients didn't stay. They left beaten and aching and wanting. He wasn't a client. And she is still not sure what she wanted when she asked him to stay.  
  
"He doesn't have the nerves for incriminating photographs." The corner of her mouth twitches. The words, the game, that is familiar. "Won't think clearly. Can't see what's in front of his door."  
  
  
"Or what's coming in the window while he's answering it," he adds. Her deviousness will be more than an asset. He thinks again about the future, and thinks about bringing her with him. He won't ask now. He'll see how things play out.  
  
As when she straddled him against a sofa, he looks up at her, her eyes far more interesting than her body. He doesn't have to look, of course. He's had her memorized since that day.  
  
  
That twitch of amusement becomes a real, anticipatory smile at that. For a moment, she allows herself to think of how much havoc they could wreak together, just how far they could make their way through the world, unseen ghosts with far more skill and knowledge than the world they moved through.  
  
It's temptation at its purest.  
  
A temptation she cannot afford to think of, because as he's reminded her, this is a temporary arrangement, a passing of ships in the night. She slips out of her heels and takes a seat on the bed, tucking her feet beneath her.  
  
"Should I feel sorry for him? I almost think I should."  
  
  
"No," he says, laying back on the bed but keeping his eyes on her. "I think he'll learn a very valuable lesson in the sort of people he should photograph in the future. And you're the sort of person to value education."  
  
  
She turns and watches as he settles back on the bed. This time she doesn't feel the need to keep her eyes on his, and lets her gaze linger, as if mentally fitting the feel of the flesh under her hand to the body before her now that there isn't some coat check attendant trying to break down the door.  
  
"I prefer experience." Still said with that same smile, maybe with a touch of sinful wickedness in it now. "Formal education leaves much to be desired in terms of misbehavior."  
  
  
He does keeps his eyes on hers, even as they drift away, looking over him. The way the makeup settles in the creases of her eyes, the way the light in the hotel room hits the conjunctival tissue and create a light shine.  
  
"It's not the education of formal education that's the problem," Sherlock says. "It's the formality. And so, we will _educate_ the photographer. And then---"  
  
And then. He'd take it one step at a time.  
  
  
She doesn't miss the way his voice trails off. It's obvious enough that even the maid making some halfhearted round delivering linens would have noticed. But then he wouldn't hesitate for the maid.  
  
Her instincts are, of course, to figure out what that aberration means, but she is too close for the moment to. She isn't certain that any conclusions she could draw from a fading word and a half finished sentence won't be utterly sentimental because she wants them to be.  
  
Willful ignorance it was then. "And then Las Vegas?" she completes for him, her tone blithe. "You'll need a better disguise for _that_ place."  
  
  
"Clearly. And a different accent."  
  
He settles himself against the pillow and considers sleeping. It seems like an incredible waste of time, especially considering how much free time he will have on the airplane to America.  
  
"And you'll remain here?"  
  
  
Sydney. She's decided. On a flight for Sydney before sunset. Or had, until he asked. The answer sticks in her throat and she shrugs.  
  
"I haven't decided. The storm after tonight might be interesting to watch."  
  
  
He says a little 'mmmhmm' of reply, but then says nothing else. He should ask her to come with him. Or tell her, if he doesn't want to appear to be begging. Or just---he should just---he should say _something_. Instead, he attempts to look past her, to try to block out the emotions he must be feeling.  
  
He should do something. Turn over and attempt to sleep. Get up and do something. He doesn't.  
  
  
She says nothing in response to his non-answer, and silence stretches. There's a different flavour to it now though, something expectant, as if something should be said, something should be asked, and she cannot read him well enough to guess what.  
  
So instead, Irene rises from the bed and heads for the wardrobe again. "So what will it be, instead of the French journalist? Moroccan cardshark?"  
  
  
The moment her back faces him his attention goes back to her fully.  
  
"I'll be selling a priceless artifact that I'm stealing tomorrow evening," he says. "But the sale has to go over three casinos. The cover has to be perfect."  
  
He steeples his fingertips under his chin. "I know what would work the best. But I'd need an accomplice. Trust is difficult to find in our lifestyle."  
  
  
Her hand stills on the door of the wardrobe.  
  
"You'd have been planning this for a while." Her words are too calm, too precise, as she opens the wardrobe and slips on a thin silk robe. Her own, not the hotel's. Three hairpins, and the knot of hair at the back of her head comes down. She still doesn't turn to face him.  
  
"What was your plan before?"  
  
  
"Irrelevant," he says. "This would work significantly better."  
  
  
If she didn't turn around, she could smile and be touched by the tacit offer. If she didn't turn around, she wouldn't have to school her expression into calm amusement. And she'd be able to draw out the game. But if she turned around she'd be able to see him, to try to read him and have him hide as much from her as she hides from him.  
  
Decisions.  
  
She does turn to face him, closing the wardrobe door again, a smile on her lips. "Hardly irrelevant. I want to know your backup plan."  
  
  
"Why should it matter to you?" he says. "You're headed to Australia."  
  
She hasn't told him this. The contents of her hotel room have. The new bottle of sunscreen, the thick-soled shoes she's recently purchased, the new name on her passport by the door. Even simple things like the touristy hat that says _Sydney_ circled in the notebook by the phone give it away.  
  
"Unless your travel plans are about to change."

 

She crosses her arms, the motion tugging at the shoulders of the thin robe, and narrows her eyes, her gaze momentarily flitting over to the pad of hotel stationary on which she'd scrawled a few cursory notes during a phone call with the front desk.  
  
"That depends on whether or not I find something more interesting to do," she replies. It's the game again, and it's a challenge. She's enjoying this.  
  
  
He sits up and looks over at her. Nude, hair down, and yet she still commands the room with her eyes. Damn the Woman. He should know when he's been beaten.  
  
"Be Irene Adler," he says, his voice cool and serious. "Destroy Jim Moriarty's legacy with me."  
  
His lips twitch into another smile. The game. Oh, but he enjoys the game with the Woman. "I'm fairly certain you won't just be sitting back at the hotel watching telly."  
  
There had been a chance she'd refuse. A chance born of caution and a familiar desire for protection. A chance that was utterly obliterated by his offer. She manages to make him say it, makes him put what he wants into words that cannot be denied. That would have been a triumph, check in this game of wills they played, if he hadn't managed in that same sentence managed to get to the very heart of the matter, find the one thing to which she could not say no.  
  
 _Be Irene Adler._  
  
Win. Lose. Check. Checkmate. Aphelion. Perihelion. The game goes on and they keep orbiting each other.  
  
It's exhilarating.  
  
Her eyes are still narrowed as she watches him, as if she could read him if she just watches him long enough. But the smile that curves on her lips is anticipatory, genuine, and sharp as razor wire.  
  
"Pity there aren't any opera houses in Las Vegas."  
  
  
"We wouldn't want to get stuck in a rut of doing the same thing, would we?" he says. He'd say he must be some sort of a masochist, considering the way her eyes seem to cut through him and how much he _likes_ it. Such the challenge. He wouldn't have the Woman any other way.  
  
"And besides, isn't Australia cold this time of year?" He has no real idea, actually.  
  
  
She wouldn't have been surprised if he was. It would explain a small part of why they both kept coming back.  
  
"Keeping track of the weather now?" There's a knowing lilt in her voice, as if she is fully aware that he has no idea. "Besides, you wouldn't want me to come with you if there was a chance it'd get boring."  
  
  
"I certainly know you'd find a way to make it interesting," he replies, by way of a compliment.  
  
  
"Trying flattery now?" she asks with a smile. As if she could say no.  
  
  
"If I thought it was necessary," he says. "But I don't flatter idly."  
  
He rarely flattered genuinely. It was usually a ruse, part of the game. With the Woman, it wasn't. She was the embodiment of what it was to be _not boring_.  
  
"I'll even give you the chance to bring out a whip," he says. "As part of the plan, of course."  
  
  
An eyebrow raise at that, and she crosses the hotel room again, back to the bed. Her eyes positively dance as she rests a finger against his sternum.  
  
"Be careful what you're offering, Mr. Holmes. If the whip comes out, things might not go according to plan."  
  
  
"They rarely do," he says, looking up at her. She has that place, to the left of her right breast, that he remembers acutely from the first time they were like this. It's not a mole, it's not a freckle, it's just a place of skin that he remembers very well and was immensely fascinated by it. The way the light seemed to hit it, then. The way it seems to hit it now.  
  
"I rarely know when I'm beaten," he warns, his voice teasing.  
  
  
She sees his gaze drift towards her breast, and that keeps her from actually belting the thin robe close. It's far more entertaining, far more fun, to see how much of an effect she has on him. How much of one he'll let her see.  
  
She matches his teasing tone as she lets her hand fall back to her side. "Is that an invitation to try?"  
  
  
"It's an invitation to Las Vegas," he says. "Everything else---" He smirks. "---we'll play by ear."  
  
  
"I'll sleep on it," she answers, stepping away from him and towards the plush couch in the sitting area.  
  
She has no doubt he can read all the tiny clues of chemistry betraying her. He's welcome to them. Because _this_ was theirs, more than a liaison in an opera house coat room, more than skin and touches, this game, this battle of wills, was what mattered.  
  
Besides, he already knows the answer. It is written in every line of her body, in every word she's spoken.  
  
 _Be Irene Adler._  
  
How could she say no? 


	7. Partnership

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Be Irene Adler. Destroy Jim Moriarty's legacy with me."  
> A partnership begins but with individuals as extraordinary as Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler, what sort of surprises would such a partnership hold?

Mornings in Montenegro were usually lovely things. Cool and sunny, and, at least in Kotor, glinting with the reflection of brilliant sunlight off the bay. And the morning after the finance minister's murder was no exception, a morning that found the foreign diva Alissa Carrington leaving her hotel room early, leaving behind instructions with the girl the front desk for clothing to be brought up and left outside the door.  
  
And a few hours later a young man with short, strawberry-blonde hair slips into the hotel room. He is slim, androgynous, with sunburned cheeks and nose that spoke of spending too much time outdoors. Dark, loamy dirt is tracked beneath his nails and in the creases of his hands, and the stuffed backpack at his feet, with it hastily fastened zippers and half-revealed, half-empty bottles of sports drinks and sodas speak of a rushed departure.  
  
He sits on the couch of the hotel room, his face hidden by a copy of the morning paper proclaiming the sudden death of the finance minister (investigation pending), while a neatly folded pile of clothes sit waiting at the foot of the bed for the sleeping man.  
  
  
Sherlock sleeps infrequently, but when he does, he sleeps _hard_ and _deeply_. Perhaps part of it is owed to the physical exhaustion of the previous evening, or part of it is owed to the silence of the Woman, but he does not notice it when she leaves. He only notices it when he looks over to the couch as his eyes adjust to the light, and sees a man he does not recognize there.  
  
The entire thought process takes about two seconds. Strange, androgynous man sitting, face obscured by the paper. Recent paper. Newly purchased backpack, but it's dirty. Empty drink bottles, obviously on the run from something. Sunburning--- This is someone who should not be in Kotor, but is here for some other reason.  
  
He grabs the lamp, prepared to defend himself.  
  
  
"If this is how you wake up, I'm not surprised you don't sleep often." The voice is droll. A touch high for a man, but perhaps not uncommon for someone as slim and obviously young. He lowers the paper and scrutinizes Sherlock with obvious interest and deep green eyes.  
  
A familiar smile tugs at his lips. "Good morning, Mr. Holmes."  
  
  
He freezes at the voice, and then at the familiar eyes and smile. The Woman.  
  
Suddenly, things make sense. The short hair suddenly has a sense of _obviousness_ about it, as does the makeup on her face. Slight bunching at her upper torso, from binding, and there's no dirty thumbprint on the bottle to show that she's been the one drinking those sports drinks. It all has an air of _deliberateness_ to it, the way that Jim's disguise back at Bart's did once Sherlock knew who he was. He's embarrassed to admit that had the Woman not spoken he'd have had no idea, looking past what should've been obvious to the little details she threw in.  
  
He takes a breath and puts down the lamp, taking the opportunity as his back is to her in order to let his expression drop and work out exactly what he's going to say when he turns around. After all, there is a level of pride one must show in front of the Woman. He schools himself and turns back around.  
  
"I hadn't expected you to take my advice for a strong disguise so well," he says.  
  
  
When he turns his back to her to set the lamp back in its proper place, Irene indulges in a brief, delighted smile. She'd known the disguise was good, she'd put it together after all, but she hadn't expected quite _that_ spectacular a response.  
  
She composes her expression back to something cooler, something more removed and touched with smug arrogance, as he turns back around. "I was tempted to see how long it would take you to figure it out." Even the green contact lenses couldn't disguise the way she watched him, the way that was uniquely Irene Adler. "But I didn't expect the lamp."  
  
  
"You should've prepared for some sort of violence," he warns. "I did kill a man yesterday."  
  
He straightens the lamp, and then stands, putting a hand to the now bruising wound at his side. It hurts, but it's not unbearable, and the feeling of lightheadedness that came with motion the night before isn't as severe. He steps over to the clothing and picks it up. His size, even the tailored trousers. He's impressed, but his expression is cool and noncommittal.  
  
"Silk."  
  
  
"I could've handled myself if you had."  
  
She remains seated, seemingly careless as she pulls the short, strawberry blond wig off her head. Her own hair is pinned tight against her scalp beneath it, and she sets the wig on the backpack for the moment.  
  
She arches an eyebrow at him, with both laughter and challenge in her voice. "Too distracting?"  
  
  
"So I've seen," he says. "All the same, let's avoid that fight, shall we? We've got a number of others to fight."  
  
He slips the silk over his shoulders and nods. It's not distracting, it makes him feel--- _homesick_. Homesick for comfortable clothes and for being Sherlock Holmes. He doesn't say this. It admits too much.  
  
"We'll need to leave Kotor immediately following the theft," he says.  
  
  
She recognizes that his silent answer isn't an answer at all, but there is a time to push, to draw things out of him, and a clear Montenegrin morning is not that time. She folds the day's newspaper and tosses it on the side table before picking up a second one, this one a week or so older, with a young woman's photograph on the society page circled hastily in pencil. She shakes the wig out and pins it back in place, the adjustment making her look hurried, unkempt.  
  
"There's a flight out to Belgrade at mid-afternoon, with a connecting flight to the States a day later. There's one to England but if it's all the same to you I'd rather not tempt fate by stepping foot back just yet."  
  
  
"I don't plan on stepping foot back there until I'm ready to come back to life," he says. "And considering Mycroft's army, I'd keep away from it in your case as well."  
  
All the same, mid-afternoon. That doesn't leave them a lot of time.  
  
"Once we have the photographs, we need to make it to the Del Sante club. One of us will need to break in, take down security, while the other acquires---the next piece we need," he says.  
  
  
She'd known that going back to England would be dangerous and unwise, but some sentimental part of her had entertained the idea, had hoped for it. To hear his agreement didn't exactly crush any melodramatic dreams, but it was a melancholic reminder of what it meant to be the late Irene Adler.  
  
"What happened to showing off, Mr. Holmes?" she asked teasingly, shoving the melancholic thought to the back of her mind. She didn't brood; being alive and in exile was far better than being dead. "You're being far too mysterious about this acquisition."  
  
  
"Consider this a surprise," he says, slipping out of his old trousers and into his new ones. "Something to look forward to."  
  
He has nothing spectacular to hand over to her right now, only his carefully constructed plans that he has somehow convinced himself always contained the Woman, rather than carefully constructed with only himself in mind.  
  
"And your plan with the photographer?"  
  
  
She offers him the older newspaper, its edges worn, its front smudged with the same dirt underneath her fingernails (acquired from a couple of planters in the hotel atrium). The photograph is of the well-to-do real estate developer whose wife Irene liked, but the hasty circle drawn on it isn't around the developer or his wife, but the half-obscured profile of a young woman, one of the servers at the society gala.  
  
"One of the photos our paparazzo sold last week. If he likes to play the hero even half as much as you say, he'll listen to a sob story about finding some idiot village boy's fiancee who ran off to the city for fame and fortune."  
  
  
"He's spent a lot of money on his camera, even though he hasn't got much to spare," Sherlock says, skeptically. "He might side with the fiance."  
  
He considers this. "Dead mother, then? Maybe trying to find her to tell her?"  
  
  
"Spider-man tattoo," she reminds him. She cannot help but smile at the prospect, at playing the game _with_ Sherlock Holmes rather than against him.  
  
"He'll be a sentimental sort. Sentimental enough to promise to help find the girl, at least. Maybe not sentimental enough to stop the idiot sod getting his own heart trod on. Dead parents are easier to disprove."  
  
  
His lips twitch again into a smile. "True."  
  
Almost an enemy, the Woman is as intriguing and taxing as the _misbehaviors_ she indulges in. She listens. She observes. She sees what others don't. She makes him _feel_.  
  
He wishes John were here, for an unusual moment, just so he can sit there and bask in the emotions that John won't see on his face. Instead, he pushes onwards.  
  
"Let's see how well an actress the diva can be," he says.  
  
  
"Haven't had enough of me showing off?"  
  
The answer is easy on her tongue, the light teasing words almost as natural as the carefully calculated words of the opera house the night before. It's not the same, no. This is something new and distinctly different between them, but there was still the undercurrent of one-upsmanship and challenge.  
  
She shoulders the backpack easily, and stuffs the newspaper into her back pocket, the hurried young man once again, and gives him a look. "I expect the diva's better an actress than the journalist a burglar."  
  
  
"You'd be surprised," he says, tossing the clothing he had before into a metal rubbish bin and setting a match. There was evidence he didn't mind leaving, and then there was evidence he couldn't allow to leave. His blood was part of the latter.  
  
"How long can you give me in his flat?"  
  
  
"I could give you fifteen minutes." She smiles, speculative. "But that'd hardly be impressive."  
  
  
He leans over towards her, a faint smile on his own lips. "You'll be impressed when you see what I acquire."  
  
  
She moves towards the door and gives him a look over her shoulder. "I'd be more impressed if you acquired it in eight minutes."  
  
  
He smiles at her retreating back, waiting back in the room. "I only need five."  
  
She can leave first, to keep suspicion about their connection minimal, and he'll follow. Oddly enough, although they hadn't discussed the photographer more than once, she'd already acquired his name and more photographs by him.  
  
Definitely the new sexy.


	8. A Lesson in Disguise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In order for the fledgling, tentative partnership between the Woman and the Consulting Detective to have any chance of success or failure, a collection of incriminating photographs that could put lie to their mutual deaths must be recovered.

It doesn't take long to make it to the photographer's flat, a tiny garret of a room in an old boardinghouse still bearing the scars of the first World War. Irene eyes the building from the outside for a few moments. The fire escape bolted to the side of the building bears spots of rust, but looks sturdy enough. The cigarette butts littering the ground beneath it spoke to the fire escape's frequent use by the boardinghouse's inhabitants.  
  
Little worry there. From the ground she expects the photographer is up and about, perhaps just barely given the time. She doesn't turn around, merely waits until she hears now-familiar footsteps approach. "Maybe I should give you ten anyway. Didn't expect the fire escape."  
  
  
"Too obvious," he says, lighting his own cigarette and looking upwards. He's acquired a new jacket, this one leather and not dissimilar to John Watson's coat, and his hair is again dark, though not quite the raven shade it grows in naturally.  
  
"I've worked out a better way in, though you'll need to make certain you both don't take the lift anywhere," he says.  
  
  
At that she does turn to look at him, the smile on her lips incongruous on the sunburned youth's face. She has a feeling he's showing off, but the prospect of seeing how this will play out is far more interesting, far more exciting.  
  
"Eight minutes from when he answers the door then," she says before picking up her pace, jogging up to the boardinghouse and up the stairs. Stairs rather than the lift. Physical exertion is easier to get than to fake, and the sprint will give her just the right amount of desperation, of breathlessness needed for the act.  
  
She makes it up to the top floor, and bangs repeatedly on the photographer's door.  
  
  
Sherlock, in turn, takes the lift. He takes it to the first door, and reaches into his pocket for a small, silver coin. He takes it to the next floor and does the same. He checks his watch. The Woman should be banging on the photographer's door any moment now.  
  
He raps on the door of the flat nearest the lift.  
  
"You got a lighter?" he asks in truncated Spanish. "We need to light---birthday candles."  
  
The person in the flat goes for a weapon. Sherlock can hear the drawer open and the cold movement of metal in the hand. Good.  
  
  
Three loud, demanding knocks on the door. A pause, as she listens to the activity inside. The sound of ceramic hitting a counter in surprise. No shatter. Good, probably not awake enough to be thinking clearly.  
  
More insistent banging, this time she adds, in rapid fire Italian, " _I'm looking for Mr. Genosa, the photographer with the paper. Is he here? The woman at the newspaper said he is here. I need his help!_ "  
  
Another pause. Footsteps from within the apartment, and the sound of the elevator slowing somewhere low. She raises her hand again to bang on the door, counting mentally. At three, the door swings open to reveal the photographer, his eyes red from not enough sleep and a splotch of dark brown (spilled coffee) on his front.  
  
  
It all had to be timed correctly.  
  
If the Woman could locate photographers, Sherlock could locate Spanish gangsters hiding out. Ones who might ignore someone ginger but be very nervous about a man with dark hair.  
  
"Shit." The word is also in Spanish, and he drops a few more of the coins down, using the edge of his toe to 'accidentally' kick one underneath it. There's a scrape of metal as the gangster looks at it.  
  
Two minutes.  
  
  
She crosses his threshold without invitation, all but throwing the old newspaper at him. She knows full well the photographer's Italian is basic at best and, between the lack of sleep and the sudden appearance of the blond man at his door, the photographer Alexei Genosa, had absolutely no idea what she was going on about.  
  
" _You must help me, Mr. Genosa. This girl in the photograph, where did you take it, who is she, where is she--_ "  
  
She continues in that vein, mentally ticking off the time. When she judges that at least two minutes had passed, Irene pauses, as if suddenly recognizing his shocked confusion rather than having pushed it. She switches to heavily accented, fragmented English, and points to the girl in the photograph in question.  
  
"I am sorry, my name is Arturo. I am looking for the girl."  
  
  
The first punch is expected, though Sherlock had really hoped he wouldn't use the butt of the gun. When the second one knocks him to the floor, he secretly hopes that he won't get a kick to the---oh, and there it is, right into the recently patched up injury. Fine, that's fine. He can handle it.  
  
The gangster, recognizing the money from a recently foiled plan (and what a strange thing it was, the whole leader group dying so suddenly. Almost execution-style. Sherlock, of course, would say he had no idea about this), came barrelling out, ready for a fight.  
  
He threw his own punch. Jaw, lower right. Enough to disorient. He dashes to the lift and slams his hand on the button to the next level. He can only hope the Woman's timing is as good as he thinks it is. The lift shuts before the gangster can make his way to it.  
  
  
It's almost too easy to keep the photographer off balance. The forceful entry. The Italian he barely understood. The sudden switch to heavily accented English. He looks at the photograph she had thrust at him.  
  
"I took that picture."  
  
She nearly rolls her eyes. " _Si._ So the _signora_ at the offices tell me. I need to know how to find her, where the picture was taken. I must find _mi bella_ , my Evangeline."  
  
Two and a half minutes, at least, maybe three. At the rate Alexei the paparazzo was understanding, Irene was starting to believe the hardest part would be to extricate herself from _him_ in eight minutes.  
  
"You want to find this waitress?"  
  
Definitely going to be the hardest part.  
  
  
Sherlock waits in the lift. He's made certain that the lift won't go back down, but the gangster won't take the stairs. He'll wait for it to see where it stops, and then take the fire escape. Heavy smoker, obvious from the smell of his fists. Once the lift makes it to the third floor, he sets it to go back down to the first floor. The lift is broken, it will go automatically back down. The gangster will see the coin and realize he's been tricked. This should take no more than five more minutes. This won't be a problem so long as---  
  
He hears a heavily accented voice coming down the hall. The Woman. Still in the room. He stops and pulls out a newspaper, dropping onto the floor like a drunk passed out. Can't be spotted until the gangster gets up here.  
  
  
There's no need to feign irritation at the photographer's response. How fortune sometimes favoured the unconscionably slow was a mystery for the ages.  
  
"Waitress? _Non, signore!_ " A babble of Italian makes made him blink. Irene hears footsteps from the lift, and curses mentally. The problem with this game becomes apparent, and she grabs the photographer by the hand and pulls him towards the stairwell.  
  
It's a feminine gesture, but if the photographer isn't sharp enough to recognize that the young man at his door had just called the woman in the photograph 'his darling turnip', well a thoughtless gesture is not going to give her away.  
  
The door to the stairwell swings shut behind them, and she, or more correctly, Arturo, explains his story in earnest, of the girl of his boyhood years who disappeared seeking fame and fortune, and how Mr. Genosa the photographer must _must_ take him now to find where the photograph was taken so he may find where the girl is now.  
  
  
He turns the moment he hears the door swing, and is on his feet before he hears the Woman talk again. The door is open, and Sherlock quickly but lightly runs inside. Computer, yes. Camera. Yes. Anywhere else? He scans the room.  
  
Bachelor, evident by the lotion by his bedside and the tissues next to it. Been a long time since his last lover, too. Religious, he's got texts of the bible next to said lotion---so fairly conflicted, but that's normal with religious sorts. Storage, though. He's going to need to store it somewhere, and not just the computer. Where else?  
  
Religion. Of course. God would protect him. Sherlock dashes to one of the crosses on the wall and plucks it off. Nothing. The next, however, has a small storage drive tucked inside the back. He smiles and stores it in his pocket, along with the camera.  
  
He hears the lift ding to life. Good.  
  
  
It helps, that she had been in Venice before Montenegro. The Italian still trips quickly over her tongue, and she'd even picked up a few more bits of slang. The nuances of which the photographer hardly appreciates as he frowns in concentration and blinks with confusion.  
  
She has tugged him halfway down to the second floor landing before the young man notices that he's out of his apartment and barefoot and digs his (physical and metaphorical) heels in. "But why do you need _me_?" he asks.  
  
She answers his question, schooling her expression back to earnest "Because you can tell me where you took this picture. You can help me find Evangeline so she will come home, _signore_ Genosa. She and I were to marry before she disappeared."  
  
Irene keeps an ear out. It's harder in the stairwell, but she counts the minutes. It's been... five minutes, nearly six? since she'd begun banging on the door. Three more, just be certain.  
  
  
The gangster is quick. Sherlock's left the door open on purpose, and the next thing he sees is the gun, and he only barely manages to avoid the first shot, which goes through the monitor on the reporter's desk. He dives towards the gangster, only to be pushed aside, and then have the butt of the gun back in his face.  
  
He can only hope the Woman hasn't taken them too far.  
  
"Help!" he calls out. "Help!"  
  
The gangster points the gun in his direction again.  
  
  
The gunshot echoes in the empty stairwell, and Irene jumps in surprise at the sound, though she would never admit it. The photographer's eyes widen and his jaw works wildly. "What was tha--"  
  
When the call for help comes, though, the man is quick to act, taking the stairs back up to the third floor with leaping steps. Irene follows, a few steps behind, a part of her hoping she won't have to dress a bullet wound. That _was_ out of her experience.  
  
By the time she makes it back to the third floor, the photographer's already shouting as he disappears back into his apartment.  
  
  
Sherlock backs up, towards the window and the rusty fire escape. Only way out. Hands up, in surrender. This gang doesn't care about witnesses, not when they think they're executing a prime enemy.  
  
The coins were extremely clever, if Sherlock said so himself. He knew holding onto a few of them would come in handy, and now was a perfect time for it.  
  
"I'll kill you for what you did!" the gangster shouts in Spanish.  
  
"Really, though, try to think it over," Sherlock replies, now in perfect, clear English. He turns to look at the photographer, to make certain the photographer sees who he is.  
  
  
Irene makes it into the apartment at the end of the over-the-top shout of vengeance and takes in the tableau with one sweep. Clever, to let the angry Spaniard take the fall for anything that would turn up missing, to force the photographer back into the room to see it. A smile begins to pull at the corner of her lips and she has to remind herself of her role as Arturo Bernaldi, sentimental idiot, willing to cross countries on nothing more than a glimmer of hope.  
  
Arturo stands wide-eyed and gaping in confused shock while the photographer looks from the lean, dark-haired man with the gun held to him to the heavy gangster doing the gun holding. The sleepy confusion that had been on his face as he was manhandled by the over-effusive Italian fades to something like recognition, or at the very least dawning comprehension, and he reaches for a heavy standing lamp, brandishing it (cord still plugged in to the wall) at both intruders.  
  
"Drop the gun!"  
  
Irene tries not to sigh. Men and heroics.  
  
  
Sherlock expected him to try to be heroic, but he didn't expect him to pull out a lamp.  
  
"This is his flat," Sherlock says in Spanish. "He isn't part of this." As he speaks, he gestures at the flat, mostly in the direction of the religious material on the walls. The gangster is Catholic. He won't kill. At least, Sherlock hopes not.  
  
Sherlock looks over at the Woman, the slight twitch on the edge of her lips. Has she worked it out? Does she understand his plan?  
  
Without warning, the gangster fires two shots to center mass at Sherlock. Sherlock stares at the gangster, eyes wide and startled, and takes a step back towards the open window and the fire escape. Another step back and he falls, gracelessly, out of the window and onto the fire escape, which creaks and moans in protest to his weight, before the stair he landed on gives way completely, sending Sherlock down towards the ground.  
  
The gangster pockets his gun and immediately leaves the room, unfazed.  
  
  
Irene meets Sherlock's eye for a moment and would have given some small hint of recognition if not for the pair of gunshots that rip through the room. For a second, as the sound echoes and deafens her, she's certain it's part of his plan, can even see the elegance in it, until she notices the startled expression on his face.  
  
As the Spaniard pockets his weapon and leaves the room, the photographer stares, stunned, and it takes Irene a half second to remember her alias again. "Call _la polizia_ ," she snaps, the effusive panic of earlier gone. "Describe the man with the gun. Don't leave the room."  
  
Before he can answer, she's making her way down the stairwell. She expects the idiot's too stunned to do more than follow directions. Probably won't even put the lamp down until he realizes he needs a hand to dial a telephone.


	9. Changing Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first trial of their new partnership proves successful, but how long will Sherlock Holmes be able to convince himself that his plans had always contained the woman who beat him in them?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, for anyone interested, there is [a fanfic auction](http://ao3auction.tumblr.com/) going on to support AO3. And if anyone in specific likes _Death Takes A Holiday_ or anything Lyra has done, feel free to [bid for a fic of your own](http://ao3auction.tumblr.com/lyrangalia) if you are so inclined.

He groans pitifully at how he's landed, wind knocked out of him from the fall onto a rubbish bin. He attempts to turn and falls off it the three or four feet to the ground, just out of view of the window.  
  
He can hear the Woman coming down the stairs. Good. Good. Better that it's her.  
  
  
Down the stairs. Out the door, and a pause to both figure out where he's landed and to catch her breath. It would never do to be anything but less than poised, no matter the circumstances between them. They are both far too fond of winning to not take a crack in composure in the other as some small victory.  
  
The swaying fire escape is clue enough, and so is the dent on the bin's plastic top. "Seems I can't let you out of my sight for a moment," she says, seemingly calm as she nears.  
  
  
He lets out a breath. His lungs hurt. He rolls his head to look at the Woman. She's calm, but there's sweat on her well-painted brow. Part of him, the same part that is more than a little sentimental towards her, feels _pleased_ at her concern, at the fact that she came down to see him rather than simply taking his death and running.  
  
"So it would seem," he says, blinking up at the white of the sky. He reaches his hands up to his chest, where two dark bullet holes mar his shirt. He pulls at the buttons, opening the shirt and revealing a secure bulletproof vest.  
  
He smiles. "You don't really think I'd be stupid enough to let him shoot me, do you?"  
  
  
She is not relieved, not at all. Pleased that her suspicions were correct but not relieved. And anything that can be read from the tension that ebbs in the set of her body is simply because of that pleasure at being right.  
  
"I just wondered where you'd have gotten Kevlar at a moment's notice," she answers, glancing up at the boarding house and seeing no movement out the windows. She offers him a hand up. "Same place as the tuxedo, no doubt."  
  
  
"Something like that," he says, taking her hand and rising to his feet. He nods to the end of the alley.  
  
"Time for one more theft. Are you ready?"  
  
  
"Once I've slipped into something more comfortable."  
  
Even as she speaks, she's moving towards the alley, and she shoots him a challenging look over her shoulder. "I expect it's your turn to be the distraction, if you tell me what I'm looking for."  
  
  
"It's a knife," he says. "Six rubies in the hilt. Priceless. Stolen by the person before us, so we'll be able to smuggle it out of the country and attempt to sell it without having them at our tail."  
  
Hopefully. He's got a lot of this planned out, and his brain is still trying to put the Woman in there, as though she's always been there.  
  
  
Her smile grows at the description and, despite the blond wig and makeup, she looks utterly comfortable in her skin, as near to Irene Adler as she had been in the opera house. She has no illusions that he _needed_ help with this endeavor, in fact the knowledge that this was a one man operation meant that things could be only so difficult.  
  
Irene gives him a sidelong, considering look. A security system he'd be able to bypass on his own, guards he can outsmart. He isn't the type to resort to bribery when wits would serve just as well, if not better.  
  
"The only stolen artifact in the collection, or is the rest fair game?"  
  
  
"That's the one we need," he says. "The rest of it is irrelevant."  
  
A pause.  
  
"Though I remember he's picked up a diamond necklace in one of his dealings."  
  
  
Whether it is his words, or the intellectual afterglow of succeeding in outwitting the photographer or some combination thereof along with the beauty of a Montenegrin late morning, whatever the cause, Irene laughs.  
  
"Then let's hope your thief with expensive tastes also has _good_ taste."  
  
  
He can't help it; he finds himself smiling. Only Irene Adler would worry about taste in the realms of theft. She'd never be a petty thief or a typical villain. No, she would always be more than that. That was the appeal.  
  
"If you can secure us another car, we can make the theft immediately before leaving for the airport," he says.  
  
  
Ordinary people walked down the street discussing the best cafe for a late breakfast, or the last overwrought, overwritten book they'd last read. Ordinary people went to operas to watch the opera. Ordinary people laughed over jokes on the television.  
  
Ordinary people had the dullest lives.  
  
Irene looks thoughtful as she considers. The driver from the previous night would hardly think it amiss to be called to drive the giddy, intoxicated lovers to the airport. No luggage, some spontaneous runaway trip. And he wasn't sentimental enough that it would be remembered as some grand romance, just cynical enough to make some guess as to how short the romance would last and then put it out of his mind.  
  
That _would_ do nicely. But then she'd have to look the part again. "The driver from last night should do," she muses, "Have him waiting a street down from the Del Sante club. He'll think we're racing off on some spontaneous holiday." She reaches up and tugs the short strawberry blond wig off her head.  
  
"Or are you bored of that particular fiction already?"  
  
  
"It'll be the most convenient," he says, noncommittally.  
  
In truth, it'll probably be an excellent way to relieve stress. Or---whatever this is that he's feeling. It feels like stress, like tension. His body full of adrenaline from the fall and the chase and the game, he wants to pull the Woman towards him and---and---well, if the wall in this alleyway were a bit more guarded, he might not be so self-restraining.  
  
Though considering the Woman, tension isn't likely to go away.  
  
  
She glances over at him at the noncommittal answer, a knowing smile tugging at her lips, as if she's read something beyond the answer in the set of his jaw or the twitch of his fingers. The blond wig is stuffed into the backpack, and she pulls out a handkerchief, to wipe away the makeup that gave the illusion of sunburned skin, to minimize the amount of evidence that could be left behind.  
  
"That doesn't answer my question," she says, in a tone that doesn't expect a response. No doubt he'd feel compelled to answer anyway, to have the last word, but that's just another facet of the game, of the ever-present tension that suffuses everything between them.  
  
  
"I wasn't aware you were so interested in my boredom level," he says. "And I thought we discussed you and the diversion you consistently provide."  
  
It sounds cold, but he says the words with a slight smile on his face.  
  
  
"You have quite a few of my secrets in the palm of your hand, Mr. Holmes," she answers, discarding the green contact lenses. It's quite a good excuse for not looking at him for a moment. "I'd hate to lose them just because you're unpredictable when you're bored."  
  
The words are light enough, almost teasingly said despite the truth on the surface and the one that lurked beneath, still unspoken.  
  
  
"I imagine you have more than a few I haven't seen just yet," Sherlock replies. He'd hate to admit that she had quite a few of his secrets as well, though that much was more than obvious. As for her---he knew so little about her, even now. So little, and yet they both knew so much about each other, too.  
  
Such contradictions. He adored it.  
  
"What do you need from the hotel?"  
  
  
"Suggesting you haven't seen enough?" That earns him a sidelong look. She's holding herself differently despite the continued presence of the prop backpack, looking less like the tense, frantic Italian and more like any dozen idealistic backpackers that crisscrossed Europe.  
  
"And nothing at all." She never left a hotel room (or indeed anywhere at all) without exactly what she needed for a new beginning on her person. It was the life of the rootless, wandering dead, after all. "But I will miss that dress."  
  
  
Would she? She did look extremely attractive in it, but she looks extremely attractive in most things, he imagines. Or nothing at all.  
  
"Sentiment?" he says, as though confirming something he should be very aware of already.  
  
It's not entirely in his best interests to ask, of course. It proves that she has something to be sentimental over. Or something he feels sentimental over.  
  
  
Sentiment. It always circles back to sentiment. But what exactly _is_ sentiment to two people for whom the mind was always the greatest attraction, for whom reading others' life stories and secret desires out of the minutiae of life was flirtation?  
  
He'd called it love once, a dangerous disadvantage. But that is too simplistic, too easy an answer. Whatever exists between them is neither kind nor patient, is terribly proud as they are both terribly proud, as self-seeking and as easily angered as either of them. If the current state of being is any indication, it delighted in the wicked and the self-serving, in things that are decidedly unconventional, unjust.  
  
But it is here between them, a constant that is its own truth and its own perseverance. A thing that exists that did not pass away with either of their apparent deaths, that survived the stripping away of life and familiar attachments.  
  
Sentiment. Maybe that _was_ all that could be said about them.  
  
She smiles wryly at that. "If I told you that would be one less mystery in your life."  
  
  
It's more of an answer than he should tell her, of course. His lips twitch into a smile, but he just as quickly lets it drop.  
  
"If you need it described to you," he says, matter-of-factly. "I remember every detail."  
  
  
Her smile turns to one of pleased amusement, and she pauses to lean against the wall before the alley meets a road. There's no one around besides the two of them, for the moment, and she takes advantage of the relative privacy to unbutton the shirt she wears and undo the bandage she'd used for binding. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it did hamper movement, and Irene suspected she would want better movement when they reached their destination.  
  
"Can you? You seemed to have been preoccupied with other things."  
  
  
"You underestimate my skills of observation," he says. He almost adds that he only forgets things that he's deemed unimportant, but the cut of a dress on a Woman should not be considered important, not to the unsentimental.  
  
He glances behind them. No sign of the journalist or the gangster. He thinks he can hear the distant sound of sirens.  
  
"News will be here before the police," he says. "Better get out of here."  
  
  
"Only once. I've learned my lesson." It was a reminder to herself, almost more than it was to him, that this was dangerous that, despite their temporary alliance and all the fascination and intrigue of it, she had once lost to Sherlock Holmes and she could very well lose again. That Sydney would have been the safer play.  
  
She finishes unwrapping the bandage from around her chest and rebuttons the shirt, taking another moment to tuck the bandage into the backpack along with the rest of her previous disguise before she quickens her step. "Any particular reason why you're interested in this stolen knife or would that be telling?"  
  
  
"Our next target," he says. "Fascinated by expensive weaponry and illegal trading. Everyone has a deal they don't want to pass up, this will be his. He also likes effeminate brunette men and things he can't have, so having a wife would make me immensely more interesting to him."  
  
He fluffs up his newly darkened hair. "Interesting enough to get close, tear things apart from the inside. And you can keep them distracted in your own way."  
  
  
There were a lot of things she could say to that. Some sarcastic quip about the assumptions he was making, perhaps, or the target in question. Instead, her lips twitch in a smile, and amusement all but dance in her eyes.  
  
"You'll have to do better than that for a proposal, Mr. Holmes."  
  
  
"I've been informed Natalie Portman will be there, too," he says with a smirk. "In case being a distraction gets dull for you."  
  
  
She pauses as the alley opened up to the street, and takes a moment to reorient herself before making a left. The Del Sante club was somewhere to the south, if her memory served.  
  
"Marginally better. But the whip wouldn't be necessary for that."  
  
  
"You never know," Sherlock says, and then he pauses and raises an eyebrow. "Though I imagine you could work out what she liked far faster than I could."  
  
He lets her lead, peeling off the bulletproof vest and discarding it in a bin on the way.  
  
"The mark, as he's called I suppose, is Henry Van Statt. He owns the Red Door, a casino partially funded by Moriarty and a holding place for most of his income."  
  
  
"What makes you think I'm not speaking from experience?" she asked, still deeply amused. A glance across the street. Still too early for the majority of the town's residents to be up and about, but enough tourists lingered about for them not to be noticeable.  
  
"And the 'mark'? Why Mr. Holmes, don't tell me you've developed a taste for those overdramatic heist movies."  
  
  
A small smile appears on his face. "John insisted that there were certain movies one could not go their entire lives without seeing." His tone is nearly nostalgic, and he swallows it back immediately. If he starts to actually _miss_ John, an emotion he can not indulge in, things will become exceedingly difficult.  
  
"There are four cameras around the knife. I can get most of them turned off, but only for about thirteen minutes.  
  
  
She doesn't miss the almost imperceptible touch of sentiment in his voice, or the small smile. They are people who read entire histories in the twitch of a muscle, in the turn of a leg, to ignore the answer was disingenuous and nearly an insult. But she says nothing, simply filing that away with a too-perceptive look, and turns to dig the bandage, as well as a small package of pertinent documents, and a small, cloth wrapped bundle, out of the backpack.  
  
They disappear into her pockets as she answers calmly, "Alarms? Any weight or motion sensors?"  
  
  
“Weight sensor," he replies. "I have a replacement knife for you to put there. It belongs to a rival of our collector friend---it'll keep the two of them squabbling long enough to keep them out of Mr. Van Statt's business transactions for a time."  
  
  
"That'll make some very large ripples in polite society in a place like this," she muses. His proposed plan is simple enough, and Irene is already running through her own skills and knowledge to improve upon it. To come out with a few more trinkets, perhaps. Insurance.  
  
"I suppose it's a good thing I'm not planning on staying."  
  
  
"And criminals vanishing into the most crime-ridden city in America should be an ideal escape, don't you think?" His smile is only barely concealed. He is so very pleased that his favorite living criminal approves of his plan, though he'll never admit the pleasure. Doing so would be giving in.  
  
"Anything else you might need?" he asks. "Our resources are somewhat limited."  
  
  
She, on the other hand, doesn't bother hiding her smile. There's absolutely nothing to be gained from hiding her amusement, and she's enjoying this far too much. "You're being positively solicitous, Mr. Holmes. Should I be on guard?"  
  
Well, more than she always was.  
  
  
"Our styles of crime are similar," he says. "But definitely not the same. I don't want you to feel ill-prepared."  
  
That could, of course, be considered a challenge. As he would not feel ill-prepared with the amount of supplies provided.  
  
  
She will, of course, take it as a challenge. She can see their destination a few blocks off, the building's facade almost gleaming in the late morning/early afternoon light. Irene pauses to toss the backpack that had served as part of her disguise into a rubbish bin.  
  
"I'll only need eight minutes. Six, if you use a power outage to disrupt the cameras."  
  
  
"Eight, then," he says. "It's close. We'll separate about two blocks before we get there, so I'm the only one who appears on the camera."  
  
And he has no plans to go anywhere apart from the front desk.  
  
  
"Then you should give me the decoy knife," she reminds him. "The last thing you want is to be seen on that camera with anything incriminating." A bit of a smirk at that.  
  
  
The knife is strapped to his back, to minimize damage when he fell. He hands it to her. Wrapped in black cloth, the knife is standard variety steel, with the symbol of a snake swallowing its own tail engraved into the handle.  
  
"Same weight, similar shape for the display case."  
  
  
She tests the weight of it in her hand, and carefully unwraps it just enough to see the hilt. "There's no accounting for aesthetics," she mutters, rewrapping the knife again, careful to keep from leaving fingerprints.  
  
"Leaving this behind might be the bigger crime."  
  
  
"Would that bother you?" he asks, though he's certain he knows the answer. "Stirring up that much trouble for two businessmen?"  
  
Such an act of misbehaving would be really outside of Sherlock's interest before he had to play dead. But now, it was simply part of how things were, how he could hop from one string of Moriarty's web to another before the first fell.  
  
And the Woman---well, she was not part of this to begin with, but somehow she'd managed to pull herself into it without even trying. Somehow, she'd weaseled her way into his life. Sometimes, if he didn't try hard enough to recall things correctly, he would see her in his mind at other points in his life, somewhere over his shoulder, mocking him when he failed to complete a case fast enough, being indecent female handwriting at a crime scene.  
  
  
That earns him a flat look, though a smirk tugs at her lips. "If making trouble for two businessmen with terrible taste and a subconscious need to collect phallic imagery bothered me, I would never have tried to blackmail a nation."  
  
  
"Well, I didn't want to damage your delicate moral code," he says without missing a beat. "Now, we've got about an hour before he gets back from his daily tryst with his assistant, so we'll need to start soon."  
  
  
She nods, stopping at the intersection to eye the building in question two blocks ahead. "I'll give you the head start," she answers with a sidelong glance. "But a question _does_ remain."  
  
  
He raises his eyebrows.  
  
"What is it?"  
  
  
Her gaze sweeps over him. "Whether or not you'll be able to keep yourself out of harm's way out of my sight."  
  
  
He smirks at her and gives her a quick nod.  
  
"I've cheated death all on my own, Woman," he says. "You're the one with the risky side to this."  
  
  
The implicit challenge in his answer keeps the sudden urge to do something, to say something, sentimental at bay, and she simply brushes by him with the barest hint of physical contact. "And I've misbehaved far worse than this. Shall I expect you'll have the cameras out within ten minutes of walking in the front door?"  
  
  
He feels the strangest desire to tell her to be careful. Idiotic, of course. She has no reason to be anything but. Perhaps a reminder that recklessness isn't necessary? Also idiotic. If the Woman weren't reckless, she wouldn't be the Woman.  
  
Instead, he nods again, and stops in his tracks, waiting for her to get ahead of him before he turns down the block to the front of the building.  
  
  
She hesitates for a half-beat, thinks better of it, and approaches the building, turning to the side alley as she approaches, and leans nonchalantly against the wall to wait. Her position gives her an unobstructed view of the front of the building, but she remains mostly unseen unless some too-curious tourist decides to investigate the finer points of Kotor's alleyways, and it is too early in the day for that.  
  
She waits, and watches for his approach to the front of the building, testing the weight of the replacement knife in her hand as she waits.


	10. The World in Slumber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> To take down Moriarty's web requires the theft of a knife and a plan that would cross continents and span countries. But surely such a thing is nothing but child's play for Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes?

He steps into the building, looking mildly disoriented and gives a wide grin to the woman at the counter. Slight tan, heavier on the back of the neck. Back from holiday, snorkeling. Slight scabbing on the top of her ears. First time snorkeler, then. Just getting used to how it fits.  
  
He strikes up a conversation about looking for the airport, about how he's got plans to go to the Archipelagos and snorkel. People new at any hobby will feign being an expert. While she's talking, he steps closer, eventually tapping the button that turns off the cameras in the upper rooms.  
  
  
At the seven minute mark, Irene makes her way over to the building, her practiced eye picking out the best route of entry. Second story window, partially open, its size relative to the others suggesting either a closet or a water closet. It's barely any trouble at all to make it to the second floor, though it takes two more minutes, and there's a moment of hesitance as Irene peers through the window to ensure nobody is within before she slips inside.  
  
Closet. Full of cleaning supplies and and a particularly zealous housekeeper, if the pristine state of the mop bucket is any indication. She picks a pair of disposable gloves off the shelf and slips them on. The bandages had been her backup for not leaving fingerprints, but the gloves were better, and nobody would notice an extra pair in the closet bin.  
  
Another thirty seconds tick by as she listens for the telltale sound of footsteps outside. When she hears nothing but the low hum of air conditioning, Irene slips out into the hallway. The businessman's display room is obvious. The building's orientation ensures that the rooms near the back will have the best light, the the better to show off any ill-gotten treasures, and the guess is confirmed by the neat pile of the carpet. Rarely walked, frequently cleaned, and the glimpse of warm sunlight glinting off polished metal beyond the threshold.  
  
Someone who likes showing off, but whose competition keeps him from doing so as much as he'd like.  
  
She eyes the ceiling and the floor, and a small, triumphant smile touches her lips. Three cameras point at the entrance to the showroom from the ceiling, all of their lights are off. She crosses the hall in silence, slipping into the room.  
  
Another quick glance, and she notices the alarm panel mounted none-too-discreetly in the shadow of an ornate vase. One panel, a single control for the room's alarms. Cheap, and easy to bypass. She takes out the Croatian's knife from the night before and gingerly pries open the control panel.  
  
The layout inside is simple, clear. Few wires, a control panel. She brings the knife up to the wires, then presses the reset on the alarm's panel. Thirty seconds reset time, perfectly reasonable amount of time to be without coverage, or so the manufacturers believed. As soon as the signal begins to recycle, Irene cuts the wires and reattaches them, switching ground with live.  
  
Twenty six seconds, and the lights flicker almost imperceptibly as the alarm system rearms itself, now diligently monitoring the changes in current of the grounding wire.  
  
  
He manages to wear down the security guard for a good bit longer, and then simply extricates himself through the front door. She will only remember him as the cute tourist who asked for her help. And he, conversely, should have given the Woman enough time.  
  
No should about it, however. No alarms go off, which means she has succeeded.  
  
He heads around the back, towards where he expects the best window for escape will be.  
  
  
With the alarm disabled, it takes just a minute to replace the knife with the decoy. She spends another minute examining the room before she slips two items that catch her eye into her pocket and makes her way back out.  
  
The Croatian's knife that she used to rewire the alarm, that she leaves in the room. It'd been meticulously cleaned of blood, DNA, and fingerprints, but for a desperate enough police force, being pressed for answers by the irate rich, its foreign make would no doubt be latched onto with a vengeance.  
  
Back to the cleaning supply closet, where the gloves join others in the bin, and out the window she goes again. She nearly slips, at first, going back down, the gloves having trapped unexpected moisture against her palms, but catches herself and lands lightly in the back alley, a look of utter satisfaction in her eyes.  
  
  
"Successful, then." There is no question to his voice. He leans a bit against the wall of the alley, looking at her eyes shining with satisfaction. Sexy, definitely. He's learned a lot about _sexy_ from the Woman, and right now he can recognize it coming off of her in waves.  
  
  
There is an unmistakable satisfaction that comes with what she liked to call misbehavior. It isn't the same satisfaction that comes with bringing a client to his knees, with breaking through the lies they tell themselves and laying bare what they liked. This was different, it was the thrill of being extraordinary enough to shape an ordinary world into what she wanted. It was the same satisfaction that she got when she stole secrets, when she let them slip and watched the influential tumble, the political careers die.  
  
And she thrilled to it.  
  
"Mm, not a question," she responded as she slipped her phone out of her pocket (around two shapes, one of them obviously a diamond necklace, the other smaller, circular). A quick text to the driver from last night. She tosses him the knife, wrapped in the same cloth as the decoy had been. "I'd have been insulted if it had been a question."  
  
  
He catches it easily, tucking it into his pocket. "If I had any doubts of your abilities, I wouldn't have made this arrangement."  
  
He only had a few doubts, easily pushed away with the results. He takes a quick look over her, at the way her clothes are bunched, and a small smile appears on the edge of his lips.  
  
"Let's start towards the airport. I assume you'll let me know what else you have, in case we have an issue in customs."  
  
  
"Customs wouldn't know what it was looking at," she answers self-assuredly, and with absolutely no hint as to what exactly _is_ in her pocket.  
  
Irene glances at her phone, a challenging smirk on her lips. "The driver from last night should meet us in about three blocks. Or are you too bored to play the part again?"  
  
  
"I'm beginning to think you're worried I will be," he replies, raising an eyebrow at her. "Because I haven't claimed boredom at your driver _yet_."  
  
Though, really, it was rather dull placating to the driver. If he was to show affection towards the Woman, he'd want it to be the way it was in the coat room---harsh, vicious, and driven by adrenaline. From the way his heart is pumping, he thinks that if he had less control over himself, it would be right now.  
  
  
"You haven't claimed to be bored in nearly twenty-four hours. I'd hate to miss it," she retorts, pocketing the phone again. It's more than that, of course, it's wanting to goad him into putting into words how their temporary alliance is more interesting than the life of a ghost, haunting momentary identity after momentary identity. Because the knowledge of that fact has wormed its way under her skin, refusing to be dislodged.  
  
She begins to head in the direction of their rendezvous point, the trinkets' weight an almost superfluous reminder of the pleasant hum of adrenaline and endorphins in her system. The motion brushes her past him, an unconscious touch.  
  
  
"I don't feel the need to vocalize _every_ thought in my mind, Woman," he retorts.  
  
He follows, just to the point where they near the car, and then he reaches down to take her wrist, to pull her towards him and lead her to the car, so he can press her against it, hold her closely. The driver will no doubt simply see more of the affection he saw during Sherlock's drunken charade. The Woman, he imagines, will see a good deal more than that.  
  
  
The driver is waiting, looking professionally bored, and for a moment there is recognition in his expression, recognition, then when he sees what he expects, the look of professional boredom again. Irene, on the other hand, laughs low and quiet at being pulled against him, her eyes nearly dancing as she leans into him. The charade allows her to press herself against him, the soft curve of hips, the unyielding outline of a necklace in her pocket, the circlet of [a ring](http://www.georgianjewelry.com/items/show/12753-antique-amethyst-diamond-cluster-ring).  
  
"Tired of asking, I see," she murmurs, knowing the driver would think it was nothing but some sentimental nothing born of infatuation.  
  
  
"Yes," he says. Diamond studded, definitely. He remembers the inventory of the antiques there and narrows down the stolen items to four. Four very expensive pieces of jewelry. He'd have expected nothing less of the Woman.  
  
"I approve. Not that it was what you were looking for." He leans down and presses his mouth to her neck, just at the pulse point. He understands, now, what she meant when she asked him if he'd 'had' anyone before. Even now, even after what they've done, he's certain he still hasn't. She, conversely, _has_ him, as certainly as she has the necklace and ring in her pocket.  
  
  
The laughing murmur becomes a hum of pleased approval at the touch of his lips against the sensitive skin at her neck, and there is no helping or hiding the way her pulse speeds up. She is caught in his orbit as surely and as inescapably as he is in hers, of that she has no doubt. Has even less doubt now than she had when they walked into the opera house, reading the life and dreams of a frustrated understudy from the curve of her spine and the set of her heel.  
  
But _admitting_ to being caught is a completely different element altogether, and that is the space all the small gestures, all the words and the games, reside in. The space that they still dance through.  
  
She answers in the same low murmur, her lips brushing against the curve of his ear, "No, but a new disguise needs new refinements."  
  
  
"I think we'll both find excellent disguises while we're there," he replies, voice low against her pulse. He can't see, but he imagines that his eyes have dilated, and he knows his skin is flushed. Chemistry is difficult to control in a laboratory, impossible in a person. He remembers one of the James Bond movies that John had shown him, where a man was able to hide his racing pulse and appear to be still unconscious within seconds. Sherlock has attempted this on many occasions, but it is absolutely impossible in a situation with the Woman. She presses buttons, she heats him up when he's generally so cold. When he generally _wants_ to be cold.  
  
"Airport," he says, and there's a touch of disappointment in his voice that isn't theatrical at all. A long flight, however. He imagines the company will make it exceptionally interesting.  
  
  
She pushes because she knows it confounds him, because she enjoys watching him stumble around emotions he doesn't seem to understand, because getting the upper hand on Sherlock Holmes is a thrill akin to that of what she styled misbehavior. It is fencing against someone who can parry in return, rather than against the ordinary world that doesn't even realize the blade has been slipped to the heart.  
  
She hears the disappointment in his voice, and she rests a warm hand against his leg, a little affection, a small touch the ordinary driver would dismiss as physical foreplay.  
  
"There won't be opera to distract from your experiments," she replies as the driver nods and the car begins to weave its way out of Kotor. No doubt the driver would take her words as lewdly as possible, but Irene expected Sherlock would recognize the _other_ possibilities. No ministers to assassinate, a couple hundred people to read the histories of, and the time to act on it, to set more than just thefts in motion.  
  
  
Every possibility settles around them, and he realizes just how _much_ can be done in one place, if one has the right companion to go somewhere with. He'd never traveled with John, though he imagines the entertainment they'd find will be significantly different than what he will with the Woman.  
  
"I'll book us the room overlooking the blackjack tables," he says. "I imagine you'll enjoy finding their tells."  
  
He should've been more focused, of course. Do what he needed to, and leave. But he couldn't think about that. There was so much _more_. This almost felt like they were leaving on a holiday---a holiday from the pretend death they'd both been living during this time.  
  
  
Perhaps the lie being silently told to the driver wasn't as much of a lie as Irene had intended, as a thrill of anticipation weaves its way up her spine at his suggestion. While they may not be the over-affectionate, drunken couple swept away by infatuation, there was no denying that there was a certain freedom, a certain abandonment happening. A momentary slip away from the shackles of death, a holiday to a crystalline, vividly _real_ existence that had been shed for safety's sake.  
  
Irene tries not to think of what will come next, how to return to the careful existence of her next alias. "Be careful," she warns, and there is something almost playful in her words. "Or I'll like having you solicitous almost more than on your knees."  
  
  
"I doubt that," he replies. "There is the _begging_ to consider, after all."  
  
He does remember her words, saying she would have him on the desk until he begged for mercy. No one had ever said anything like that to him before, and no one has since. And that spectacular look of befuddlement on John's face. The whole day is etched in his memory, and he's certain he would not be able to delete it, even if he wanted to.  
  
  
He isn't the only one to remember every exchange, and the knowledge of that is a strange balm to her pride. And she cannot help the smile that it provokes, dangerous and razor sharp even without the red lipstick, without the makeup. "What happened to never begging?"  
  
  
"What happened to twice?" he retorts.  
  
  
She doesn't bring up the coat room, doesn't have to, because she is the woman as he is the consulting detective, and she knows as well as he does that there has already been begging. That puts to the lie his insistence of never and makes her promise of twice far more likely.  
  
She leans in close, the jewelry in her pocket pressing against his leg again as she lets her lips linger against his ear, all warm breath and the light, almost imperceptible, touch of lips and tongue.  
  
"It's a very long way to Las Vegas."  
  
  
It will be, especially with the layover in Baltimore. But he thinks of all of the times he's felt utterly irritated within the confines of an airplane, and he imagines they will feel a lot less irritating (and a good deal smaller) with the Woman by his side.  
  
Oh, the trouble they will get into. He can't wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so ends the first part of _Death Takes A Holiday_. We hope you've enjoyed it, and Lyra's going to take an extra week off to get ahead on the next installment, so look for it to begin in two weeks. Cheers!


End file.
